Marketers usually think of anti-spam tactics as ‘how to prevent’ readers from perceiving their e-communications as spam. There is another, more sinister, consequence that may affect you. Spam is not just an inconvenience. For legitimate businesses, it steals productivity, erode your brand, and rob you of revenue.

Many companies have no idea their products are being sold on the black market or their customers are tangled in credit card frauds thinking they ordered something from your organization and are about to receive zip. These shifty sales schemes cost companies billions of dollars each year in lost customers and sales of products and services.

While Aunt Margaret may have served Hormel canned pork (SPiced hAM referred to as Spam), like it or not, you knew what was in it. With Internet spam (unsolicited bulk email or unsolicited multiple postings to one or more Usenet newsgroups), you don’t always know what you’re getting. Some spam messages are convincing. Some are plain annoying. Whether spicy or not, many of them result in criminal offenses on a worldwide level.

Producers of a popular product, a drug like Retin-A, a best-selling software program, or a service such as a vacation package, are all economically affected by spammers. When people buy these knock-offs, legitimate companies lose money. When people order something and don’t receive it, your company gets a bad name.

Five strategies for protecting assets

Whether your company sells pharmaceuticals, software, or other products, these five plans of action will help stop brand and revenue robbery:

1. Protect your intellectual property.
Follow these guidelines for managing the digital rights to your property and for protecting it.

- Verify everything is copyrighted and trademarks are registered. That includes registering with the U.S. Customs Service, because much of this criminal action happens overseas.

- Make formal contracts with your distributors or authorized resellers. Get it in writing that they agree not to send spam about your products.

Unfortunately, in most cases, your audience assumes you or one of your distributors is sending these spam messages about your product. Most of your customers or prospects have no idea someone completely unrelated to your sales organization would take the liberty to send a missive about your intellectual property.

2. Join industry associations.
Every member of the Internet community will be more effective working together than as individual organizations. One way to connect with other companies facing the same problem is by participating in lobbying efforts with them. If you work together, you can trade war stories and tap into additional valuable resources. Try to connect with people that share the same values your organization does. Communicate regularly about issues surrounding spam and the progress of your task force.

3. Be prepared to react.
Once you catch someone, be prepared to prosecute immediately. Spam prevention can only happen at the expense of current spammers, by taking legal steps to enforce the minimal standard out there, and prosecute those guilty of major crimes.

- Set up investigators to sleuth the problem.

- Set up an abuse email address (abuse@yourcompany.com) so buyers and customers can forward spam to you.

- Report anything that affects your brand to the authorities.

- Track the spammer down. Instead of starting at the sender of the spam, direct your search to the end result of the spam. You can do this by making a purchase. That way you will know immediately if the spam is criminal in nature. You will also know where the spammer collects his or her payment, and if the spammer is a pirate or credit card scam artist.

- If the party is guilty of pirating your product, work with that third party payment collection company such as Visa, PayPal, or BillPay and inform them of the problem. They will then get a court injunction to cease and desist, meaning they can shut the guilty spammer down. If the party is guilty of credit card fraud, inform the third party payment company, and also inform the internet service provider (ISP). In the U.S., the ISP will immediately shut down the spammer. Other countries have different laws, however, which is one of the reasons you want to register your product with the U.S. Customs Service.

Know that if you prosecute legally, once you get a court injunction and win your case, you are eligible for disgorgement. This legal term means you are entitled to all of the revenue that the spammer collects. While you may not get rich, at least you’ll help stop the problem at its source.

4. Establish great business relationships with distributors and customers.
This strategy relies heavily on public relations including enewsletters. Part of image building, your branding falls under ensuring good business relations. Plante recommends the following ways to build these relationships:

- Let your customers know that spam exists.

- Send out customer surveys about your products and their attitude about spam, piracy, and credit card fraud.

- Create publicity around your steps as a Spam Fighter. Position yourself as a leader in the fight. Perhaps, add an occasional article in your newsletter about your fight against spam or put a note that spam is not tolerated by the "unsubscribe to newsletter" information.

5. Don’t continue to spread spam to other users.
While legislation is one way to prevent spam from spreading, Robert Alberti of Sanction, Inc., recommends using technology such as firewalls, spam filters, and virus protection to help prevent and detect fraud. He also recommends using the task force to help end users become more knowledgeable about spam.

Position yourself in the eyes of customers and prospects as one of the "good guys." Regularly inform customers about the steps you’re taking and alert them about possible fraud. As long as you continue to communicate with your customers, they’ll realize the people at your company and throughout the Internet community don’t like the taste of e-mail spam.

Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl.net who increases conversion rates by writing and editing content so organization can focus on their core business. She is the editor-in-chief of the eNewsletter Journal and Shavlik’s The Remediator Security Digest. Visit her Web site at http://www.meryl.net/blog/.

This review is taken DIRECTLY from a piece of "junk mail." It is or the program that starts out with the heading: "Before You Decide To Throw This Away, Please Read The Enclosed At Least Once - Then Decide. This is Not a Chain Letter! I Threw The Program in The Trash."

The first paragraph reads: "I had received this program before and threw it away, but later I wondered if I shouldn’t have given it a try. Of course, I had no idea who to contact to get a copy, so I had to wait until I was mailed another copy of the program - eleven months passed, then it came. I DIDN’T throw this one away. I made $41,000 on the first try!!" Signed by D. Wilburn, Muncie IN.

In order to get your attention quick, Mr. or Ms Wilburn shares their experience of making the mistake of throwing the letter away. A normal person will say to themselves: "I don’t want to make the same mistake Wilburn did. He had to wait another 11 months before he had the chance, so I better really read this thing." But in reality you’ll find out that this piece of garbage has been floating around for years and if you miss this copy, you’ll get another one tomorrow or the day after.

The next thing you see is a bold headline reading: "You are about to make at least $50,000 in less than 90 days - in the comfort of your own home. Read the enclosed program, then read it again." The average person is skeptical but the idea of money has been planted in your mind right up front. This will cause you to read a little while longer.

The rest of the page is completely filled with hype - informing you everything is LEGITIMATE and LEGAL. (We all want to be legitimate and legal don’t we?) Claims are made that the program works 100% every time and how thousands have used the program to raise capital to start their own business, pay off debts, homes, cars, etc., and even retire. You can ALWAYS recognize a scam because your emotions are appealed to in a big way. Think about it - doesn’t everyone on the planet earth want money to start a business? Pay off debts? Have homes, cars, etc.? Would anyone turn this offer away? NO! That’s what makes it so easy to recognize these scams - they appeal to everybody and do nothing! Your emotions are cruelly played with!

Okay, let’s move on. Frank T of Bel Air MD relates his personal testimonial at the top of Page 2. Try to look in the phone book and find either D Wilburn or Frank T. Notice how only a partial part of their names and addresses are ALWAYS presented. This is so nobody can find them. But why bother? They don’t exist!

The instructions are presented on the rest of Page 2. They consist of precise directions for ordering four reports, paying $5 cash for each one and moving the names around on the list. This is a typical chain letter and they don’t work because 99.9% of everyone receiving it replaces their name and members of their family with the people listed.

These instructions are completely stupid. They make you go through a bunch of bull just to make you believe you are doing something worthwhile. Actually - all they’re doing is selling you some worthless reports - which you may or may not ever receive.

Page 3 instructs you to get a mailing list to mail the letter you are reading to. Of course, when you order the reports, you will get information on where to purchase this mailing list. Don’t you see that these people only care about selling you a mailing list? They could care less if you get a response or not because they made their money from you purchasing their bunch of worthless names and addresses. In fact, you are even told to get names and addresses from your phone book. Come on! This is the ABSOLUTE WORST way to sell anything simply because you have no idea what these people are interested in. Even if you sold a real product, let’s say: baby-sitting services - you wouldn’t sit down and advertise it by writing letters to everyone in the phone book. Instead, you’d place an ad in the paper and have people only interested in baby-sitting contact you.

Now comes the guarantee. It says: "The check point which guarantees your success is simply this: you must receive 15-20 orders for Report 1. This is a must. If you don’t within 2 weeks, send out more programs until you do. Then, a couple weeks later, you should receive at least 100 orders for Report 2." Notice the word "should." The fact is, you could mail until the day the Lord comes back and you’ll NEVER get 15-20 orders. You’d be lucky to get even one. Believe me - 1,000’s of people have put the chain letter theory to a variety of tests and actually given it every chance in the world to make money. None have ever worked.

Now, here’s the hype that really gets most people. Here it is reprinted in it’s entirety: "Let’s say you decide to start small, just to see how it goes, and we will assume you and all those involved send out only 200 programs each. Let’s also assume that the mailing receives a 5% response. Using a good list, the response could be much better. Also, many people will send out thousands of programs instead of 200! But, continuing with this example, you send out 200 programs. With a 5% response, that is, 10 orders for Report 1 (ten people responded by sending out 200 programs each) for a total of 2,000. The 5% response that brings 100 orders for report 2. Those mail out 200 programs for a total of 20,000. The 5% response to those is 1,000 orders for Report 3. The 1,000 send out 200,000 total and the 5% response to that is 10,000 orders for Report 4 (10,000 $5 for you.) Your total income in this example is $50 + $550 + $5,000 + $50,000 + $55,550. Remember friend, this is assuming that 95 out of 100 people you mail to will do absolutely nothing and trash this program. Dare to think what would happen if everyone sent out 1,000 programs instead of only 200. Believe it, many people will do that and more. By the way, at current prices, your cost to send out 200 programs is less than $100. The participation fee is ridiculously low when you consider what you stand to gain! Consider yourself fortunate to be invited to participate in an exclusive program that really works. Have faith. Think positively, Keep in mind that your investment is minimal and it’s easy money invested in you."

Give me a break! What a bunch of lies. Anybody that reads this and really believes it can work must also believe that Snow White really lives in the forest with the 7 dwarfs.

The truth of the matter is that it really would work if everyone did what they were supposed to do - but they won’t. I’ll prove it. Go to a place where there are a lot of people (like a mall). Walk up to the first person you meet and ask them to give you a $5 bill. In return for their $5, they will get $50,000 if they will just find 10,000 other people to give them $5 by promising them the same thing. How many people do you think will take you up on your offer? If you do find one person to do it they will either be mentally retarded or hard of hearing. So if you couldn’t work the program in person, what makes you think it will work through the mail with people who have no idea who you are? The truth is - it doesn’t work. It NEVER will!

Page 4 tells you all about these four wonderful reports you will be purchasing. Their titles are beautiful: "How to Make $250,000 Through Multi-Level Order Sales" and "Sources For The Best Mailing Lists." I’m sure we all can’t wait to order them right away.

Page 5 is a personal note from the originator of the program - Edward L. Green. He doesn’t have a city and state beside his name. Why? Because his full name is used. (Remember, they don’t want you to try and find these people.) A real testimonial would be proud to give you the full name, full address and phone number of the individual so you could get in touch with them to find out more about the program. Anyone hiding so that you can’t call them up or write to them directly is a scam artist. No doubt about it!

Edward L Green tells you about how poor he was in 1979. He also says that he will never see a penny of your money. He has already made $4 million and wants to retire. Give me a break. If you made $4 million wouldn’t you want $5 million or $10 million or $20 million. Why stop at a measly $4 million when you could star on the Lifestyles of The Rich and Famous and be interviewed by Robin Leach? $4 million is chicken feed if something really worked to bring in this amount of money!

Amazingly though, on Page 6, Johnson Distributing gives a real name and address. But try to get a phone number on them with an address of "PO Box 7, SAFB IL 42225-0007." It doesn’t exist!

Page 7 and 8 contain letters from Chris Johnson, Paul Johnson, A. Zurki, Carl Winslow, A.S. Jalosyk, Bill Nelson, J.T. Adams, Charles Fairchild, Tommy Jayhet and Mary Rockland. They all tell you some hard luck story about how this program changed their life. Again - try to contact them. If you live in Waco TX, try and find Tommy Jayhet and see what he has to say about all this.

Do you get the picture yet? Almost all scams follow this same general theme. Don’t get taken!

———————————————————
Julia Tang publishes Smart Online Business Tips, a fresh
and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people
like you! To find out the best online business opportunities,
and to discover hundreds more proven and practical internet
marketing secrets, plus FREE internet marketing products
worth over $200, visit: http://www.best-internet-businesses.com
———————————————————-

Note: Feel free to publish it with the resource box and content unchanged

My friends in the web hosting business have recently informed me that the big problem this year (2004) is security and fraud. I have read that currently the F.B.I. receives over 9,000 complaints per month pertaining to bogus email and websites. Why is this happening? Are just a few ‘bad apples’ doing it, or is it the result of a lopsided world economy where the underprivileged are finally striking back like the infamous Robin Hood? Whatever your moral view, I’ve got the strange feeling it stems from a growing unconscious greed in the social consciousness of modern society. People worship money, not spirituality or love. Am I wrong?

Technically, the main problems at the moment are ‘phishing’ or ‘spoofing’ scams. This is where the use of Spam or junk-email is used to lure computer users to look-alike websites where they are deceived into giving out personal information and financial data. Often these emails are coming from trusted sources where hackers have altered links to send you straight into their ‘pockets’. The Internet user is duped into thinking that they are visiting a trusted website page, when actually it is an excellent copy of the original. There might be only one tiny change in the web address that is often not easily recognizable.

Identity theft is where multiple tricks are employed to make you fill out fake forms on fake sites to get all sorts of information that can then be used by thieves to steal money or get free Internet access. Anything from credit card numbers to account information, passwords, billing data and personal phone numbers and addresses have been stolen and used for criminal purposes.

These tricksters, few or many, are wizards at finding loopholes in mail systems of legitimate sites. Just go to the site entitled www.crimesofpersuasion.com and read some articles about a few of the more famous scams that have been busted or that are still in circulation. There’s a story about a 17-year-old boy who was arrested with over a million dollars in misappropriated funds hidden in a Costa Rican casino account! Smart kid, but how smart is he really if he got caught? On the site above there are also tips for consumers generally focusing on how not to give your information away to anyone at any time. Check them out.

It worries me a little, this huge amount of illegal activity. I know that a lot of people feel that currently the world is very imbalanced in terms of wealth and spirituality and that this new epidemic is just a karmic reaction of the oppressed masses. The United States earns 50 percent of the world’s economy, of course some of the other 95% of Earth’s population is going to be keen for a piece of the pie, right? Steal from the rich and feed the poor like that guy in the green tights.

The funny thing is I think that a lot of these thieves are living in America and unbeknownst to themselves be already part of the top 5% of wealthy humans. The problem is that they always want more. Money can become addictive in a consumerist society whose advertising and marketing schemes are constantly bombarding us with stimulus relating to the next new product that we ‘need’ in our lives. We are never satisfied with what we’ve got. The next purchase’s momentary injection of adrenalin becomes more of an imperative than any concept of lasting spiritual happiness.

Feel sorry for these people that have to go through all the rigmarole of sorting all these frauds from the real sites out there. I doubt there is a religion on Earth that teaches that theft is a balanced respectful action. I do know that when the country of Australia was founded it was done so on the backs of convicts, many of who had only stolen bread to survive. That’s a kind of theft that will question your moral value system. I’ll leave you with one last question: If the ‘first world’ has nearly all the money on our planet, are we the biggest thieves of all?

Jesse S. Somer
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net Jesse S. Somer is a concerned human hoping to one-day witness humanity living in a peaceful and egalitarian world.

2004 was really a year when the whole subject of email and spam has been at the forefront of the minds of internet marketers.

The anti Spam legislation has had more than the desired effect. I think everyone hates spam, even spammers. I guess also that everyone hates spammers, except spammers, though they probably hate other spammers. An attempt by legislators in different countries to prevent the deluge of spam into Inboxes was to be expected. The spam itself had already spawned the spam filter industry, which has "flourished" this year. I put flourished in "" because flourishing gives the impression of health. Their balance sheets and profit and loss figures may be flourishing, I don’t know, but the email industry is not.

Spam filters were set up to prevent spam, not to kill perfectly genuine and good emails, from friends, lovers, publishers you have requested a newsletter from, or anybody else who is not "spamming" you. Some recent figures suggest a significant proportion of valid emails are not reaching their destination. Is that good? Is that what the legislation intended? No, it is it not.

People use filters in good faith, without, in most cases, having any idea how they work. They may be blissfully unaware that, in some cases, good email will not reach them. How much does that damage online business? How many business relationships are damaged by failure to respond to an email that was never received? How many personal relationships are damaged in the same way? Nobody knows. But if, for example, a marriage is on the rocks, one such incident could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Internet marketers in particular have been covering the subject an enormous amount in the past year. Some are even saying that email is dying. Well, dying is surely an exaggeration. Maybe those marketers want others to give up so they have the field to themselves. However, it is increasingly difficult for internet marketers to get their message, even if requested, to the recipient. They comply, in most cases, with the legislation, but the self appointed Spam Police have their own ideas of what email people should receive. To me, that is far more annoying than spam itself. It is a form of censorship if it snuffs out email that people really wanted to receive.

Is spam as a problem exaggerated too? Well, I have no figures on that, but in my own case it has never been more than a minor irritation. I have 3 websites with different email addresses on, which can presumably be harvested for spam email lists. One of those websites has been there nearly 2 years. So is my Inbox filled with spam? No. I get a few, but it is a minor irritation. Maybe I’m lucky, I have no way of knowing.

I do know that the people I expect to hear from do get their emails to me, but I have no spam filters activated. I have just never found it necessary. One problem I have noticed, though, is nothing to do with spam filtering. Once most marketers legitimately get hold of your email address, they start sending far too many advertising only emails. Even if they start off with one or a series of helpful emails, which you may have requested, it soon deteriorates into an ad bombardment. Recently, I opted out of the list of a well known internet guru for that very reason.

So, it is up to internet marketers to put their own house in order too. If they send out emails that people find useful, entertaining, reliable or profitable (preferably all 4), on a consistent basis, people will look forward to their good content. They will take the extra steps necessary to ensure the emails they want get through to them. In most cases, adding to the address book or "approved" list will do just that. Who will want to "approve" an email address that sends nothing but ads when the expectation was, originally, useful content. I think the average person would accept a reasonable amount of advertising, if it is relevant and is a small % of the content.

I cannot foresee that email will die, even as a marketing tool. But it could be in need of surgery, and it is up to all of us to learn the surgical procedures.

Roy Thomsitt is the owner, webmaster and author of http://www.change-direction.com , a new website in late 2004, about working online in a home based business. He has a background in offline advertising, with practical experience of working from home in marketing since 1995, plus 2 years of experience with online marketing. Professionally, he was trained as a management accountant and has substantial background in project management, implementing new office, accounting, computer and management systems.

Like everybody who will ever read this, I get spam in my e-mail. Mine seems to fall into one of three categories. The first is the Nigerian scam about helping some poor, pathetic soul collect megabucks, supposedly from someone who has died and left a fortune. I’m not sure what is worse: that there are people desperate enough to believe those messages, or that there are people despicable enough to prey on the desperate. The net result is the despicable con the desperate into sending money which the desperate will never see again.

The second type comes from people who sound innocent enough. They have a product or a business or a service or something else that is perfectly legitimate. They surf the web, find one of my sites, find the “contact us” link, and send me information about whatever they have to offer. I suppose, in their minds, it isn’t any different than walking down the street or going through the telephone book writing down addresses, and then sending out bulk business mail with the same offer. They could get the same information for more money and less time by buying a mailing list. THAT is perfectly legitimate. Harvesting e-mail addresses off of web sites is NOT. Spam is officially defined as “unsolicited commercial electronic mail.” The key word is “unsolicited.” If I didn’t ask for it and you send it anyway, it is unsolicited. When people harvest e-mail addresses off of web sites and then send commercial messages, that, by definition, is spam. I report them to my ISP and you should, too.

The third type isn’t so innocent. These people, like the second type of people already discussed, surf the web, find sites, and harvest the e-mail addresses from the “contact us” link. Instead of starting out by sending you what they have to offer, they get devious, sneaky, and just plain under-handed. They send you a message asking for more information about whatever you have to offer on your site. When you graciously respond, it turns out they couldn’t care less about what you have to offer. The ONLY thing they want is to confirm your e-mail address so they can start to dump offers on you, hoping you will buy something from them. Nasty trick.

Let me give you an example from one that once came across my screen. It seemed to be from a nice lady with homey graphics and nice colors in her e-mail. If my memory serves me well, she even stated that she was disabled and looking for ways to earn a living off the internet. In my mind, that’s a hard combination to resist. A great deal of effort was put into this to make it sound as if she had built an internet community around her site and services. Maybe she did; I don’t know. Anyway, I was naïve enough to respond with the information she had requested. Soon solicitations for this, that, and whatever business offer, etc. began arriving in my inbox. I finally put two and two together and realized that they were from her, but I was still reluctant to report it as spam, so her messages went quietly into the trash. I mean, she seemed SO NICE! Then I got this huffy message, apparently broadcast to her entire mailing list, about how if people didn’t want to receive her messages, why didn’t they just unsubscribe, etc. It seems quite a few people had reported her as a spammer and she was getting into trouble. It was time for me to respond, so I told her, bluntly, that what she was sending out WAS spam. It was unsolicited. I never signed up to be on her mailing list, and no doubt the people who had reported her never signed up to be on her mailing list, either. I only responded to a request FROM HER for information and that in no way implied that I wanted to be on her mailing list or that I wanted to receive her offers. She must have gotten the message because I have received nothing else from her.

So how about you? Are guilty of sending out e-mail to people who did not specifically request to receive offers from you or about a business that you represent? If you go around looking for e-mail addresses to harvest for your own purposes, you are guilty of sending SPAM. Instead, post your offers on your web site and market them legitimately. It’s the right thing to do. When people fill out your form, they are giving you permission to send them information. Keep a record so you can defend yourself if they ever forget what they did.

If you are on the receiving end of unsolicited offers, go ahead and report them as spam. Don’t feel guilty; you are not the guilty party. Just make sure you really didn’t sign up for a newsletter or something and then forgot! It is sooooooooooooooo not cool to report spam that really isn’t!

Sandi Moses has been involved in internet marketing since November, 2003. Visit her sites at http://www.123iwork4me.com http://www.123-home-based-business-works-4-me.com

E-mails now have a connection back to their servers. I will leave the technical aspects out of this article. Instead, I will walk you through how information from your computer is getting back to them.

You have probably experienced this already, an e-mail lands in your box with many symbols in the subject line created with the Shift Key plus a Number Key. This is the most common one. For example, it may look like this: &*)(*&^%$#! Except the length of the symbols are longer.

When you click on it to delete it, any further action, including the deletion of the e-mail seems to go into la-la land. In other words, you can do anything else. This may last up to a minute or two depending on your computer speed. You have just been pinged and information is going back to their server saying there is a live connection.

In addition, because the symbols change all the time, it’s difficult to block them unless you use a program like Spam Arrest.

Here is an easy way and excellent way to protect from this and all you have to do is change the way you dial in and out.

If you have a DSL line or any other type Internet connection that is open all the time. Control how frequently you allow e-mails to upload into your system. If you use Outlook, you go into Tools, Options, select the Mail Delivery tab and change "check messages every" 30, 60 or 90 minutes. This also helps on time management if e-mails are eating up too much of your time.

Next, after all your e-mails are uploaded into your software, whether you set the time management feature above, close off the Internet connection. It will not stop the lost 30 or 60 seconds these e-mail lock up your computer but you have cut off any possible pinging.

After you close the Internet connection, read, review and delete the e-mails. After completing this, you can go ahead and reopen the Internet connection, and send your responses.

If you have a dial-up connection, you can do this same method, except you will ignore the Mail Delivery option mentioned earlier.

This actually isn’t just happening on e-mails with these symbols. There are other programmed e-mails dumping cookies on your computer. I will not address how to remove cookies in this article. To find out how your software can remove your cookies use F1 (help) on your keypad in your e-mail software to find the answer before. WindowsXP also has additional information for removing cookies under: Start, Help and Support.

Catherine Franz, a eight-year Certified Professional Coach, Graduate of Coach University, Mastery University, editor of three ezines, columnist, author of thousands of articles website: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Spam. Those annoying, time-consuming emails that clog your Inbox and ruin your day. You wonder: How did it ever get so bad? While it’s not possible to completely eliminate spam, there are quite a few things you CAN do about the problem to reduce your burden.

Spam is defined as an unsolicited email trying to get you to buy something. In addition, it’s email that tries to get you to give up something: your credit card number, social security number, login ID, etc., by pretending to be a legitimate email. Here are some tips for stopping the current spam you’re getting, and avoiding getting on new spam lists.

1. Maintain two email addresses: a Personal Email Address (that you give to family, friends and business associates), and a Safe Email Address (one you use whenever you’re ordering something online, signing up for an email newsletter, or creating a profile on a website).

For instance, I use a Hotmail account for my Safe Email Address. If a spammer were to get a hold of that address, fine. All the spam will go into my Hotmail account, which I only look at once a week. Hotmail has a great anti-spam filter built in, so it’s easy to see what’s spam and what’s not. This practice leaves my personal email account relatively spam-free (maybe I get two spam emails a day to my personal account). Some free email services include Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail (Google’s new email service).

2. Use your Safe Email Address to send emails to companies who might be harvesting email addresses from incoming emails. For example, say you want to write to a company to ask them about their products. Some companies will harvest your email address from the email you send to them, and put you on their mailing list. By using your Safe Email Address, you can avoid seeing messages from these companies come to your personal email address.

3. Stop giving your email address to everyone who wants it. Does your local bank really need your email address? Does your grocery store need it? Just because someone asks for it doesn’t mean you have to give it to them. If it’s a non-local company, or you are signing up for a mailing list, then they probably do need it. But it’s okay to leave the email address blank when filling out forms. Always ask yourself, Do I want to be contacted by this company via email? (Speaking of mailing lists, make sure the companies you subscribe to have a public, posted Privacy Statement on their website.)

4. Do not put your Personal Email Address on your website. Instead, use a form so that your email address is hidden. However, some spammers use special software that looks at the HTML code hidden in the form to steal your email address, so using a form by itself isn’t always the safest route. Better yet, use a free Form Processor so that your email address is never even in the HTML coding on your pages.

The service I use is Bravenet’s Form processor (www.bravenet.com). You can see ours in action here: http://www.passionforbusiness.com/send-email.htm

5. Never buy anything that’s sent through a spam email. First, it just encourages them to continue to spam. Second, it tells them that your email address is accurate, and they can then sell that address to someone else.

6. Never reply to spam and ask to be unsubscribed. They’ll just ignore it anyway, and it tells them that your email address is accurate, which just keeps you on the list. Note: many legitimate emails newsletters and mailing lists use automated unsubscribe links at the bottom of their emails, and you CAN use these to get off of mailing lists.

7. Use anti-spam software, like Norton Internet Security, on your own PC to filter spam as it comes into your email system. You still receive the spam, but it gets filtered to a Junk Mail or Bulk Mail folder, and segregates the spam from the legitimate email. Most anti-spam filters need to be trained, however, so you’ll have to occasionally tell the filter that something is NOT spam that it inadvertently put into the Junk Mail folder. Many of these anti-spam filters work on the principle of White Lists (legitimate email addresses that you DO want to receive email from) and Black Lists (spammer email addresses that you do NOT want to receive email from). Learn how to train your anti-spam software and it will work wonders for you.

8. Check to see if your ISP or hosting company has anti- spam technology in place, to catch spam before it even hits your Inbox. Be careful, though, because sometimes these filters are over-zealous and you have to train it to accept emails from mailing lists that you have subscribed to.

9. Do not use a catch-all email address. A catch-all email address is set up if you have your own website, and it is intended to catch all of the incoming emails sent to your domain even if there is no legitimate mailbox by that name. For example, your email address might be mary@mydomain.com. If that mailbox is set up as a catch all, and someone sends an email to marie@mydomain.com (with a spelling mistake in the email name), it will be forwarded to mary@mydomain.com. However, spammers know about catch-all email addresses, and will take your domain name mydomain.com and add common prefixes to it, like info@ or admin@. If you have a catch- all, then those spamming emails will come to you, even if you don’t have a legitimate mailbox of info@mydomain.com or admin@mydomain.com set up with your hosting company. See how easy it is for spammers to get to you?

10. Finally, if spam is really bad, create a new personal email address for yourself, tell everyone about the new address (give them several reminders that you are changing email addresses), then delete the old personal email address. This may seem a little drastic, but if you receive 200 spam emails a day, it might be time to time this final step to eradicate it.

You are not powerless against spam. But you do have to take action to fight back. Don’t let them bully you into accepting hundreds of unwanted emails a day! Take action now to reclaim your Inbox!

About The Author

Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to boost clarity and focus, create sustainable motivation, and increase sales and profits. Visit her website at www.PassionForBusiness.com

Did you know that there are software programs that view web sites and steal email addresses? It’s called "harvesting" because they’re harvesting your email address from your site. This may be one of the reasons your web site email address is receiving more s*p^a#m than wanted email.

When I first started teaching web design classes, I strongly suggested that students place their email address on each page - it makes your site a bit more "trustable." But it turns out this is just leaving you wide open to harvesting.

So now, what I suggest are links on each page directed to a single contact information page, where your email address is encrypted. If the s*p^a#mmers end up figuring out the encryption, it’s still easier for you to change one page worth of information vs. many pages of information. Encrypting your email address makes the gathering process a little more difficult while it provides that legitimate email get through to you.

If you find that one encryption program has stopped working, see if the provider updated the code you were using (many provide regular updates) or change to another service.

Do you have PayPal payment or shopping cart links on your site? Up until about a month ago, the old PayPal coding included your email address. If you haven’t upgraded recently, update your PayPal links to include the encrypted code they provide, too. Changing that code stopped quite a bit of unwanted email from reaching me.

Here are some helpful encryption program resources:

http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform/
http://www.robertgraham.com/tools/mailtoencoder.html
http://natata.hn3.net/antispam_encoder.htm
http://www.tucows.com/preview/266685.html
http://innerpeace.org/escrambler.shtml
http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html
http://w2.syronex.com/jmr/safemailto/

Encryption programs - A VERY good thing to use on your web site to reduce unwanted email.

© 2004 Maria Marsala, Business Builder and former Wall Street Trader. "Powering-UP service busine$$es and their owners". Providing articles, tips, classes, and business resources in our ezine "SIMPLE Business Steps" Learn more at http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com

I. BACKGROUND

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them.

The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site.

A "transactional or relationship message" – email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship – may not contain false or misleading routing information, but otherwise is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is authorized to enforce the CAN-SPAM Act. CAN-SPAM also gives the U.S. Department of Justice the authority to enforce its criminal sanctions.

Other federal and state agencies can enforce the law against organizations under their jurisdiction, and companies that provide Internet access may sue violators, as well.

II. WHAT THE LAW REQUIRES

A. It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s "From," "To," and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.

B. It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.

C. It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor’s email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it’s illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.

D. It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.

III. PENALTIES

Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. Deceptive commercial email also is subject to laws banning false or misleading advertising.

Additional fines are provided for commercial emailers who not only violate the rules described above, but that also:

A. "Harvest" email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email generate email addresses using a "dictionary attack" – combining names, letters, or numbers into multiple permutations

B. Use scripts or other automated ways to register for multiple email or user accounts to send commercial email

C. Relay emails through a computer or network without permission – for example, by taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without authorization.

The law allows the U.S. Department of Justice to seek criminal penalties, including imprisonment, for commercial emailers who do – or conspire to:

A. Use another computer without authorization and send commercial email from or through it

B. Use a computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial email messages to deceive or mislead recipients or an Internet access service about the origin of the message

C. Falsify header information in multiple email messages and initiate the transmission of such messages

D. Register for multiple email accounts or domain names using information that falsifies the identity of the actual registrant

E. Falsely represent themselves as owners of multiple Internet Protocol addresses that are used to send commercial email messages.

Glen Littlejohn, Esq. http://www.mortgagemarketingtsunami.com

Death by spam is now possible with a new device by Microsoft. The device when implanted in the user’s skull allows downloading of email directly into the brain.

Niles Bookbinder, 37, an assistant working for Jon Hanson, author of Good Debt, Bad Debt was accidentally spammed to death Tuesday morning using a beta version of a new email device called, “MS Mind.” A Microsoft spokesperson said, “We don’t have all of the bugs worked out yet, but this is the first death we know of.” Mr. Bookbinder had unwittingly “unchecked” the spam filter in the MS Mind control panel. Without the spam filter, apparently Niles unleashed the entire world of spam into his "medulla interface" and was literally spammed to death. It’s likely the last words Mr. Bookbinder heard were, “You’ve got mail!”

Wireless Medulla Interface providers are popping up everywhere. Dr. Jack Kevorkian sees the new Wireless "G" Medulla cards as a real advance for him. With these systems, euthanasia supporters predict quick, painless death by simply bypassing the filters and downloading thousands of spam emails quickly. Kevorkian said, “I have been looking forward to killing patients by email.” Kevorkian expects his prices to be competitive with AOL.

While it is not a victimless crime, it would be a crime without a knowable perpetrator. You would have no way of knowing whether your "loved one” was finished off by the breast enlargement, Viagra softabs starting at $2.99, or $ave $$$ now refinance emails.

A PETA spokesperson, Ima Chihuahua, said she found the idea disturbing because it could lead to so-called Spam Collars that would be used to kill pets as they aged, or "convenience" killings, such as when a young couple could not find a kennel on their way to Vegas or they simply change their minds about having a pet.

PETA may be right. It has long been rumored that KFC has been testing the effectiveness of spamming chickens to death versus simply whacking off their heads. In earlier tests, chickens were forced to watch Gili and Ishtar until they simply cut off their own heads, but this experiment was discontinued because of the cruelty to experimenters.

Spamicide, accidental or not, will undoubtedly set off a bitter debate in America as Anti-Spammers and Right-to-Spam groups rally to raise money and jockey for political clout.

George W. Bush seemed bewildered at this morning’s briefing. He looked to his press secretary and said, "Are we Right-to-Spam or Anti-Spammers?" Elsewhere, Jesse Jackson, finding it difficult to be Right-to-Spam said, "It should be the choice of the spammee. Spamicide should be legal, available, and rare."

NEXT WEEK: Partial Spam Deletion. Should this barbaric practice be outlawed? Are thousands of viable spams being killed in spam filters, just before being downloaded? The debate continues…

Jon Hanson
www.gooddebt.com
jon[at]gooddebt.com

Jon Hanson, is the author of "Good Debt, Bad Debt: Knowing the Difference Can Save Your Financial Life"

His web site is http://www.gooddebt.com jon [at] gooddebt.com

For a bit of audio comic relief go to: http://gooddebt.com/debtdowns.htm

Available for interviews radio, print, TV, contact Jon through the website http://www.gooddebt.com

Review of Good Debt, Bad Debt: USA Today February 7, 2005 http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2005-02-06-debt-usat_x.htm