Most people find unrecognized, unknown, unwanted email in their inboxes every day, some of which can even be graphic in nature. And those people all have better things to do than sort through those emails on a daily basis.
What millions of people around the world don't know is what they can do about spam.
The first thing to do is set up some filters to reduce the amount of spam that comes in, but it's not going to get rid of it completely. Other things can help as well.
The purpose of email filtering is to get your email account to work at looking for specific words, both in the subject of the email and the body of the message itself. You can then decide what action you want your email account to take when it finds an email with the keywords specified. Generally speaking the email can either be routed directly to your bulk or junk folder, or into the trash. Some programs allow for messages to be automatically deleted.
The downside to filters is that they only work so well. Spammers are always one step ahead, and about the time you put the word "viagra" into the filter, the spammers start coming up with alternate ways of spelling the word, like v*i*a*g*r*a. The insertion of the stars, or any other alternative spelling, will act as a loophole for the spammer to get their messages past your filters.
Additionally, what if you receive an email from someone you do know, who is talking about their husband getting on viagra. It's an email from a friend that you would normally receive, but because they use the word viagra in the email, it will be filtered as well.
In an effort to "help" consumers, many ISPs and email providers started putting in filters of their own, or added features that the user could tweak to their own personal preferences, that never worked really well at all. If you've ever wondered why there were more legitimate emails in your junk folder and more spam in your inbox, that is why. This is especially true for mailing lists that you opted to receive (like your daily horoscope, for example). The mail provider may have your best interests in mind, but they don't allow quite enough personal customization by the user for personal preference.
At this point, about the only thing a person can really do is create separate emails for private and public use, and when they create those email accounts they need to choose a name that is less likely to be guessed at by the software that spammers sometimes use to create lists. Use the private account for family and friends only, and never share it with anyone else outside of those you know and trust. Use the other account as a throwaway that you use for mailing lists and other subscriptions that you want to receive. If it starts becoming inundated with spam, simply close it and open a new one.
The German email security firm eleven releases a bimonthly report on spam and malware, based on its analysis of a billion emails each day from 30,000 global installations. These numbers are from the the December 2009/January 2010 report.
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