 Can
you stop the Spam...PLEASE!
Published
in the July edition of
Computer Link Magazine
Spam
or unsolicited commercial email is growing
at a tremendous rate; every day there
is more of it in my mailbox. Who needs
another six offers for Viagra or toner
cartridges, not to mention adult content
that is repulsive? The former pleasure
of reading my email has now turned into
a daily chore of deleting vastly more
Spam than legitimate emails, not to
mention wastes at least ½ hour
of time each morning.
Where
does this come from? Why can’t
this be stopped? What can I do?
Spam
comes from a variety of sources some
within our control and many outside
of our control. Within our control are
the places we conduct commerce that
ask us for our personal information.
Many times people do not take the time
to read their privacy statement, which
sometimes says they will share this
information. The first step is to read
privacy statements and do not provide
personal information that will be shared.
Even this is difficult when sites change
their privacy statement after a lengthy
period of time. Even long standing sites
like Yahoo recently advised its users
that they had suddenly changed their
privacy policy!
There
are also robots that scan the Internet
and collect legitimate email addresses
from Web sites. For example, this article
will be published on the www.rochestercomputers.com
Web site with my email address listed,
making it accessible for these bots
to identify it and add it to lists.
Try typing your name and email address
into www.google.com and see where you
are listed on the Web. Additionally,
be aware of signing up for forums or
free offers that in effect trade products
for your email address. Downloading
plug-ins and other free software products
also puts you at risk. The reality is,
that if you are active on the Internet
it’s almost impossible to avoid
giving up your email address in a way
that won’t somehow end up on some
dreaded Spam list.
How
about Spam filters? These filters seem
like a reasonable idea until the first
time you don’t receive an important
piece of email. Do you really want someone
else deciding what you should or should
not receive? The biggest problem with
a technical solution like filters is
that as soon as you select a way to
filter, such as blocking an IP address,
the unscrupulous email operators find
a technological way around it. Unfortunately,
once you or your ISP introduces a Spam
filter, there is a high risk that you
will not receive some communications
you want and over time it looses it’s
effectiveness.
What
about legislation? Recently the European
Union has enacted a common position
and possible legislation known as the
“Data Protection Directive”
throughout Europe. This ban of all Spam
is to be ratified by the individual
countries. While this ban sounds like
a great solution, much of the Spam received
originates outside of the country we
live and work in, which significantly
reduces control. The Internet is a world-based
medium and restricting a portion of
it doesn’t mean much in the big
picture?
In
the United States there is both federal
and state legislation pending with regard
to Spam related issues. (see: http://www.spamlaws.com/)
To date there has been no successful
federal legislation passed against Spam.
This is in general due to the first
amendment that insures freedom of speech
by the constitution. Spam really borders
on a number of key issues that are difficult
to resolve. For example how do you determine
what one person believes is Spam and
another may see as informative? There
clearly is no right or wrong answer.
Spam
legislation should be directed at creating
stiff penalties for actions that are
clearly “deceptive.” These
practices include misrepresentation
of sender or point of origin, falsifying
routing information, use of a third
parties Internet address or domain name
without permission, or misleading subject
information, and false statements or
offers. Stopping these deceptive practices
can go a long way on significantly reducing
the number of unwanted messages we all
receive.
Unfortunately,
completely eliminating Spam all together
is an extremely difficult task with
no simple solution. The best way I have
found to reduce the number of unsolicited
messages I receive has been to create
rules in Outlook. These rules allow
the user to specify common words and
phrases that are included in Spam, such
as FREE, or Viagra as well as specific
addresses or names that continually
send unsolicited messages. I also include
messages where the “To” or
“From” fields are blank as
another key way to identify unwanted
messages. Once you have identified the
criteria for the unwanted messages you
can create a special folder where all
of these messages will be forwarded.
This way you can give them a quick scan
when you have a minute before deleting
them, giving you more control over your
inbox and saving you time when trying
to access your important email.
Even
with the continuing annoyance of Spam,
I find email to be an extremely effective
way to communicate. Email allows me
to receive information at my convenience
and hopefully from those who I want
to hear from. I will continue to opt-in
to receive information I want from LL
Bean or Patagonia in order to get their
sales specials emailed to me as well
as business newsletters from credible
sources for information of value.
We
can’t ignore the positives of email
because of the annoyance of Spam. As
users we can only educate ourselves
to better understand where Spam comes
from and how we can help reduce our
exposure to it. Just as we have learned
to live with offline junk mail, we will
also have to learn to live with Spam.
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