Here are some great tips and tools you can use to help deal with junk mail, also known as SPAM mail.
Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about reducing the amount of junk email you are already receiving other than changing your email address. The best strategy is to be careful with who you give your email address to.
Spam Arrest -- This organization provides a service where email sent from anyone will not come through to you unless they go through a manual human validation process that automated SPAM systems can't use.
Spam Gourmet -- Allows you to create new disposable email addresses any time, anywhere. Each address can have its own lifespan limit.
GMail -- Although not really an anti-spam tool, GMail is web based email with a unique feature. People with Gmail accounts rarely get any SPAM email.
Web Site -- Don't post your email address on your web site. The Internet is full of with automated systems that are just crawling web sites on the Internet on a continuous basis searching web pages for email address that, once found, will be added to a list of spamable email addresses and sold. Once that happens, your only recourse is to change email address.
Email -- Never respond to SPAM email. Never try to opt out of receiving junk email. Only the most trusted business names will honour such requests. The rest will just take this as a sign that someone is actually reading their email thereby raising the value of your email address on the market. I would even go so far as to recommend that you don't even open junk mail, even in a preview window. Just delete it right away. Sometimes just displaying the email is enough for the sender to be notified that a graphic image in the email was viewed by the recipient. Most of the time you can tell if something is junk email by the name of the sender and/or by the subject line.
Multiple email addresses -- One strategy that I use is to have more than one email address. Now you can really go crazy with this but it really is enough to just have a few. A public and a private one for your business, one for personal emails, and one you give vendors. It is an unfortunate reality that some organizations will actually sell your email address to the junk email industry. By having multiple email addresses, you will limit the number of people you will need to notify when you decide you've received enough junk email from a particular address.
Again, the best thing to do with an email address is to keep it safe. Unfortunately, even email addresses you have shared with your most trusted friends will eventually end up on the spammers list as a result of computers getting infected with spyware. One way around this is to use less common alternatives to applications such as Microsoft Outlook to manage your email.
Computer Security
Computer security is something we should all be conscious of. Be a good Internet citizen by making sure people can opt out of subscriptions and easily removed from your distribution lists. Ensure that your computer has an up to date anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, and that the operating system (like Windows) is always maintained up to date.
Remember that great offer for a free anti virus that came with your computer when you first bought it? If it has been more than a year, chances are pretty good that it is outdated and possibly not even receiving updates. Updates are very important as there are new viruses and spyware appearing on the Internet every day.
Contact me if you would like to discuss how you can improve not only the security of your computer(s), but the way people perceive your business.
With best regards,
Life Coach Michael Milette
www.MichaelMilette.com
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