Why do I get so much spam and what can I do about it?

If you are wondering about spam coming through your website contact form, click here. The answer below applies to spam coming through regular email accounts.

Spam is a huge problem for users, for email server administrators, for everyone except the spammers themselves.

First thing you have to know is that there is no way to make spam stop once it starts. So you have to prevent it from the beginning. You have to protect your email address.

Second thing you have to know is that anti-spam software you install on your computer is getting better, but it still doesn't work perfectly. It will classify some of your good email as spam, and let some of the spam through to your inbox. Deciding what is a good email and what is a bad email is a tricky job for a piece of software. You'll have to decide if you want to use spam filters.

Prevention is the important thing. When you first get an email address you must take steps to protect it from becoming a target for spam.

You start getting spam when your email address is added to a spam list.

Just how this happens varies.

The main way your email address gets added to a spam list is that it is sold or given away by someone you gave it to. This is where "privacy policies" come in. Before you give a company your email address, read their privacy policy and determine what they are allowed to do with it. When you are filling out forms, make sure you always opt out of receiving email offers from that company or other companies they do business with.

Sometimes you are forced to provide an email address when using a web form, or signing up for something with a company. It's a good idea to have an address (that is not your primary address) to use for this type of situation.

Our current recommendation is that you sign up for a gmail.com account, through Google. You use this account when you must provide your email address to a company that might give out your address. Gmail has very good spam filters, so even if your gmail address is added to a spam list, you won't end up drowning in spam. And if spam is being routed to your gmail account, it won't end up ruining your regular account.

The other primary way your email gets added to a spam list is because it was posted on the web. There are actually software programs that search for email addresses by crawling the web. Don't ever post your email address on the web. It's tempting sometimes when posting comments in a weblog, a discussion group, or a similar site to include your email address so someone can get back with you. If you must post your email address, use the word "at" instead of "@" when you type it out, as this will slow down address harvesting robots that crawl the web. It won't completely prevent it, but it will slow the harvesters down a little.

It's a good idea to search the web occasionally for your email address. Search for your email address (in quotation marks) using Google. This will bring up every indexed instance of your email address that appears on a website. After you find out where your address is appearing, you can email the site owner and ask that it be removed.

When the spam coming into your inbox gets to be too much, it's time to get a new email address.