Managing SPAM Emails

The other day, Terry Zink posted an excellent article on security that questions who is at fault when security is breached. Along the same vein, if you sign up for email messages and the proceed to get spam, you may be complicit in your own subsequent deluge of unwanted emails. Even though most reputable sites have some sort of email policy indicating what they will do with your email address, many may not follow it. If they fail to follow it, who really has time to go back and call them on it.

Most people have more than one email accounts. There are so many free email services online, it is silly not to take advantage of them. A maximum of three email addresses is all you need to reduce your email headaches.

Top Secret Account
Configure one email account to be your top secret account. This is one that you only give out to your most trusted and like-minded friends and family. You do not want to give this to your sister in law that constantly forwards you chain emails along with all her other contacts. This account should only be given to people who follow proper email etiquette.

Business Account
Reserve your business account to correspond with people with whom you are conducting business. This includes your customers, suppliers, banks etc. Most business transactions should be archived especially if you fall under the various privacy laws and requirements like Sarbanes-Oxley. Managing a couple of email accounts on your business email can help you distinguish between important correspondences and transaction backscatter.

Throw Away Account
Everybody who browses the Internet and finds information they cannot live without should set up one or more throw away accounts. This way, if you decide later that you can live without subscribing to a particular newsletter, or find that your account was compromised or sold to unscrupulous spammers, you can simply toss it later. You can add your sister in law to one of these too, because eventually someone will find the address on the cc list and send you junk.

By using throw away accounts, you can often pinpoint exactly who sold your email address or violated their own stated policy by sending you spam. At that point you can take appropriate steps to inform them or report them to their ISP or to black lists.

The point is, if you give your email address to someone who is likely to use it to spam you later, you are someone responsible for the spam you receive. Take care of your email addresses and you will see a lot less spam, or at least be able to deal with it easily when it occurs.

Copyright 2008, Pathfinder Email Consulting