I get tons of junk mail in my spam folder. Is there anything I can do to reduce the amount of spam around?
Well, this wasn’t really a question I got, but someone sent me an email that’s in response to this and I thought I’d share it here. Thanks Clive!
Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make a few cents for each hit. That‘s right, all of that inconvenience over a few coppers!
How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:
- When you forward or reply to an e-mail DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That’s right DELETE them, high light them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. NOTE: – You must click the Forward button first then you will have full editing capabilities for the body and headers of the message. If you don’t click on Forward first; you won’t be able to edit the message at all.
- Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don’t see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that’s it, It’s that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say ‘Undisclosed Recipients’ in the ‘TO:’ field of the people who receive it.
- Remove any ‘FW:’ in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
- ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view; you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.
- Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it who is supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don’t believe the ones that say that the email is being traced it is not possible.
- One of the main hate is the ones that say that something like, ‘Send this email to 10 people and you’ll see something great run across your screen.’ Or, sometimes they’ll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen. IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! Don’t let the bad luck ones scare you either, they are just trash. And if you want to see a pet in baby clothing, just search for it in Google.
- Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that’s been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at http://www.truthorfiction.com/ then go to search, click there then type in the heading of the email or some of the content and it will bring it up and you can see if it’s truth or fiction. It’s really easy to find out if it is real or not: If it is not; do not pass it on. So please, in the future, let’s help stop the junk mail and the viruses.
That arrived just in time too, my mailbox is full of emails about acne cures, promises to grow bits of my body and shrink others and all sorts of special deals. How do you deal with junk mail?
Another site for checking the validity of hard luck stories, virus alerts, and the like is http://www.snopes.com
Thanks for the tips, Owen!