January 28, 2005

A Simple Solution to Reducing Spam

Did you know that YOU could be one of the biggest sources of spam? Unfortunately there is little you can do to protect current email addresses that are being spammed, but future (new) email addresses - there's a lot you can do.

When you publish your email address on a web site, spammers can copy that email address and add it to their spam lists. When one spammer gets your email address, more than likely it is shared with many others.

So the solution - do not put email address on a web site. Use a form, or make the email address a graphic image so email capture programs, which can only capture text, can't capture your company's email addresses.

Another thing you can do is to put a space or "AT" in place of the "@" symbol. Doing this means someone must read your email and manually type in the email address.

Cnet writes Conducting business publicly on the Web--specifically publishing company e-mail addresses online--is another surefire way to garner heaps of spam, according to Postini's research. The report said that certain industries are more likely to expose addresses, including the publishing, advertising, legal and real estate sectors, which received more than 10 times the amount of spam as companies in other markets.

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