Dealing with Spam

Killing time the wrong way - Recently Google, the behemoth search, mail and online applications provider released statistics that the amount of spam making into their webmail client’s email inboxes doubled from 1.3% to 2.6% in the month of February. I have used Gmail since it was in the invite-only beta testing phase and I can attest to the fact that they have traditionally been better than Hotmail and Yahoo at keeping junk out of my inbox. 2.6% still isn’t bad, and in fact is below national averages, but it is still unsettling to think that a company with a multi-billion dollar research and development budget can’t kill this phantom menace.

What are these guys thinking?

I’ve never been able to wrap my head around how most spammers could possible see any benefit from the messages they send. Who is likely to do business with a company that floods their inbox with nonsensical, seemingly random messages about fake Rolexes, physical enhancements and whatever else is being offered? The answer is that there’s a sucker born every minute, and someone, somewhere really does think that the deposed prince of Nigeria has millions of dollars just waiting to be whisked out of Nigeria right into your bank account and that you want cheap medications from Canada.

Why Spammers spam

Spamming remains economically viable for spammers because they have no real operating costs beyond maintaining their mailing lists, and it is difficult and/or impossible to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because it’s a cheap business to get into, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge.

Since e-mail is dirt cheap to send, a tiny number of spammers can flood the Internet with junk mail. Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient margin of profit to keep the spamming alive. Furthermore, even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business. Finally, new spammers invade the Internet every day, and the low costs allow a single spammer to do a lot of harm in a very small amount of time.

It’s a numbers game

Like telemarketing, direct mail and other methods of passive selling, SPAM is a numbers game. The numbers however are staggering and costly. Here’s a brief breakdown compiled from various authorities:

The State of California estimated that Spam cost organizations in the United States over $13 billion in 2007

• The average PC user receives over 3,000 spammed emails per year.
• The average computer user receives about 22 spams per day.
• Spam increased by about 63% in 2007.
• About 28% of people answer spam emails - not a great idea.
• 15-20% of corporate email is spam - this figure increases daily
• 25% of spam is product-related.
• 70% of spam messages at the end of Q4 2007 featured sexual enhancement products
• Over 100 billion spam emails are sent per day.
• Nearly 80% of spam emails are sent from zombie networks or botnets.
• (Botnets are networks made up of small software applications that run on a host computer that are used to send SPAM, steal personal information, disrupt networks, etc. they are sometimes referred to as Trojans or Worms. An estimated 40% of all Internet-connected computers are infected and act as part of a botnet)
• 40% of all spam comes from just one source (The Srizbi botnet)
• Websites in China are the most common destination for Spam links
• 70% of “take my email off your list” aren’t fulfilled.
• 84% of emails posted on websites end up receiving spam.

Protecting Yourself from Spam

There are some common sense ways to reduce the amount of Spam you receive and thus lessen the amount of time you have to waste dealing with it. There are also many tools available that you may already be using or that are easy to implement. Here are a few of the better ways to keep it from being an ongoing problem for you:

Don’t post your email address in plain text on your website or any other website if you can help it. There are tools like this one that will encode your email to make it easily readable to your website visitors, but mostly unreadable to bots. You can also hide your email address from bots by typing it as yourname(at)domain.com without the @ symbol.

Use throwaway email addresses for when you need to provide an email address to post on a website but don’t need to maintain a long-term relationship with that site. Mailinator or Spambox are very useful for this purpose.

Use a contact form on your website instead of revealing your actual email address. This will not work for everyone, but it can help if you get a lot of messages from your website visitors.

Have a private email address that you only use with close associates or family and friends that you never post on any website. You can use this address just for the personal stuff.

Don’t open spam messages in your inbox. If you can tell that a message is Spam, delete it immediately. Spammers can often tell if a message has been opened, which notifies them that your address is a valid one.

Block HTML graphics in your email client. Often times these images can contain potentially malicious code which can lead to your computer becoming infected with a virus, worm or Trojan. Most email clients will allow you to unblock images from trusted addresses, so if your family sends you photos in an email, or someone you do business with sends HTML formatted email you will be able to view it normally.

Do not respond to unsolicited email. One response from your email address can start a wave of new spam because the spammer now knows they have reached a living, breathing potential victim. Even the unsubscribe links should be avoided as they are often just a way for the spammer to con firm the address.

Do not click on that link! Clicking on links or opening attachments in an unsolicited email is just asking for trouble. If you don’t have an existing relationship with an organization and they send you mail, you are probably dealing with a spammer or someone phishing for your private information.

Create effective rules or filters in your mail client. If you’re not in the market for any medication make a rule that sends everything with the word ‘Pharmacy’ in it to the junk mail folder. Once you get the hang of it you’ll be able to make effective rules and filters easily.

Turn on filtering in your email client. Most people use Outlook or Outlook Express as their mail client. Make sure you have your junk mail setting set high enough to filter out most of the junk without also deleting important emails from your boss, clients, coworkers, etc.

Use Spam filtering software such as Norton Anti-spam, AVG Internet Security or Vanquish. These products can save you a lot of time by killing the spam before you even have to see it in your inbox.

Never buy from Spammers. Even if you really like the product or price or both, avoid purchasing anything from any company that sends out Spam email. There is always someplace else to find what you’re looking for and the only way to end spam completely is to make it less profitable for the spammers.

The bottom line is that there is currently no surefire way to completely avoid having to deal with Spam, but by using the right tools and a little common sense you can severely limit the amount of your precious time it wastes on a daily basis and use email the way it was intended.