BC Technologies
1 North Main Street
Mansfield, PA 16933
(570) 662-7990
sales@bctech.com

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How Can I Avoid SPAM?

Spam email is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Why you might ask? Well it is amazingly cheap to send and it gets the “message” out there to millions of people instantly. The more people that use email, the more potential sales there are for spammers.

So how then do they get ALL those email addresses? Typically an email spammer buys a list of email addresses from a “list broker” who compiles it by “harvesting” addresses from the internet. If you use your email address in a newsgroup posting, on a website, in a chat room or in an online service’s membership directory, it may find its way onto these lists. The “spammer” then uses special software that can send hundreds of thousands – even millions - of email messages to the addresses with one click of the mouse! Once your email address is on these lists, just try to get it off – I dare you! The odds of being removed are about 1 trillion to none.

Here are some ways to help you avoid spam before it becomes a problem:

1. Try not to display your email address in public. That includes newsgroup postings, chat rooms, websites, in forwarded emails, or in an online service’s membership directory.

2. Check the privacy policy carefully when you submit your address to a website. See if it allows the company to sell your address. You may not want to submit your email address to any website that won’t protect it.

3. Read and understand the entire form before you transmit personal information through a website. Some websites allow you decide if you want to receive email from their “partners” – BUT you have to uncheck a preselected box.

4. Sometimes the best solution is to use two email addresses – one for personal messages from family and friends and one for newsgroups, chat rooms, online purchases and newsletters. Using a “web-based” or disposable email address like Yahoo or Hotmail for newsgroups, etc. protects your “real” address from spam and can usually be forwarded to your “real” account. If the disposable address starts to get bogged down with spam, you can just get rid of it and get a new one!

5. If having more than one email address is more than you want to deal with, then try to use a unique email address. What you choose as your email address may affect the amount of spam you receive. Spammers use a special technique to sort through possible name combinations at large ISPs or email services, hoping to find a valid address. A common name such as jdoe may get more spam than a more unique name like jd51x02oe. Of course, there is a downside to having a more complex name – it’s harder to remember!