An explanation about how to protect your email address.
Authored by Gilbert
- YOU WILL LOSE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS - unless you read this. (spam protection)
If you do not protect your email address, you will lose it.
You will lose it because when you start getting too much junk mail,
it will take too much time to search through the junk mail to find your real mail.
At this time, you may think that junk email will not bother you . rest assured, it
gradually and continually increases , until (when you finally realize that it could be
a problem), it is pretty well too late.
Your only choice will be to change your email address.
Filtering junk mail will only help delay this for a short period.
So- 1. -you will lose your fancy email address by which everyone knows you.
2. -This is a problem ,as not all of your contacts get your new address.
This has happened to many, many people already.
It is statistically shown that junk mail will keep increasing in volume for several years.
Also, many more methods of extracting email addresses from the web are constantly being
developed by spammers.
SPAMMERS are people sending unrequested and unwanted advertizing email.
The purpose of this page is to explain how to protect your email address.
There are only a minority of people that don't care if they get junk mail and don't
want to protect their own email name from junk emailers.
1. DO NOT USE EMAIL FORWARDING
1. DO NOT USE EMAIL FORWARDING for those general interest, 'pass along' emails.
A General Interest email is any email that a person would forward on to other people.
The practice of forwarding messages assists junk emailers getting more addresses for
their lists. If you forward a 'pass along' email, your email address is on that list.
Every person's address that you forwarded the email to, is also on that list, grouped
under your email name, and clearly defined as your email list or 'address book' list.
As people forward it on, it becomes hundreds of email addresses.
You will have given your email list to all of them, along with the addresses and lists
of all the other forwarders.
(It continues until people stop forwarding the email because of it being to large from
all the added addresses.)
You can ask people to "CLEAN UP THE MESSAGE" to remove all previous email addresses
on the email. A lot of people just can't be bothered to do it.
It is not a reliable method to hope that they will all do it.
I have counted several hundred email addresses on some forwarded emails.
All it takes is for one of those emails to get in the hands of a junk emailer, and he
gets all those hundreds of names.
I don't want my name to be on it at that point.
I don't wish to keep having to change my email address because of excessive junk mail.
2. THE ONLY SAFE WAY TO EMAIL
2. The only really safe way to pass along those 'pass along' emails is to
have 2 email addresses.
You have your good email address that you use all the time, and then make a
disposable email address that you can expect to change sometime in the future.
You only use the disposable email address to pass on those interesting emails that
will probably be forwarded on. . . . READ THIS LINK BEFORE MAKING A NEW EMAIL ADDRESS, click here.
You will need to use cut and paste, to transfer the text emails to the disposable address.
For attachments, download them and then reattach to a new email on the disposable address.
This is necessary in order to protect your good email address.
When you send out any 'pass along' email, your email address stays with the email ,
everywhere the email goes.
You only need to use this disposable address for those 'pass along' emails.
If you have a personal news letter that you send to your address list, you can use
your good email, since this is not something that will be passed along and along.
When using this disposable address, you MUST use the "Bcc" field ("BLIND CARBON COPY")
to insert all your email address list.
You should put your own disposable email address in the "To" field to send a
copy back to yourself.
This is needed because most email programs require at least one email address in
the "To" field , so put your own their.
The purpose of this "Bcc" field is to protect the email addresses of all the
people that you are sending this email directly to.
If you are not familiar with or need
an explanation on this "Bcc" field , click here.
I do not answer requests to send forwarded emails back to sender, as it
is possible that they started the email, for the purpose of collecting
addresses for junk mailers lists.
Think about that when you are reading some of those types of emails being passed around.
They may sound very convincing.
3. LARGEST SOURCES OF JUNK EMAIL
3. There are other things you can also do, to protect your email address.
Use your disposable email address to sign up for anything that may give you ad. mail.
It is probably useful to use the disposable address whenever you sign up for something,
because this is one of the largest sources of junk email.
You will be glad you did if you change your mind about the signup.
The stuff keeps coming.
If you want to post your email address anywhere, (like a message board) use the
disposable address.
You can always give your good address to someone you contact.
You cant remove it from a spammer.
4. EMAILS SENT TO MORE THEN ONE PERSON .
4. Suppose that a person named 'FrankForwarder' sent a 'pass along'
email to you and to at least one other person that we will call BettyPasson.
If you look at the email header information at the top of the page ,
you will see the names of the people that the email was sent to.
The names will be described as being in a 'To' field, or a 'Cc' field.
If your name does not appear to be listed with the names of the other
people in those fields, then it was probably put in the 'Bcc' field and
your email address has been protected in that email.
If your email address was in the 'Bcc' field , that means that your address
will not appear in the copy of the emails that was sent to the other people.
If your name is in one of the lists of 'To' or 'Cc' along with BettyPasson or
other names , then your email address is included in every email that
BettyPasson sends that email to , and everywhere that a copy of that email goes.
You should send FrankForwarder a copy of this explanation and ask him to
put your name in the 'Bcc' field in any 'pass along' emails.
By doing that , it will protect your email address in the future.
In this situation, it would be good to send BettyPasson a copy of
this explanation , and ask her to not forard the 'pass along'
email that has your email address included in it.
5. LAST RESORT.
5. if a person keeps sending you 'pass along' emails with your
email address in the group of names, after you have asked them not to,
your only option is to ask them to remove your email name from their list.
As a very last resort, A persons email address can be deleted by
systems operators if they continually persist after warnings. A copy of a recent email that I received , click here.
6. DO NOT REPLY TO SPAM.
6. We are always advised to not reply to spam for removal of names, as
some spammers will put your email in a separate list referred to as "people
that actually look at the spam instead of deleting without opening".
You have to open (look at an email) to make a name removal request.
If you think this article was a bit long , consider the value of
losing your cherished email address.
If you think that it could be helpful to others, it might be easiest
to send them the address of this page and ask them to read it.
If you do not specifically ask them to read this page, many people will
decide to check the site at a latter time , and never get to it.
(I am just thinking of how often I delay looking at articles)
Return to my homepage -, click here.
7. OTHER INFORMATION LINKS ABOUT THE FIGHT AGAINST SPAM.
The organizations and web sites listed below contain information that
can be very helpful in that endeavor:
-SPAM TRACING Tools - explaining email header - Who do I complain to?
http://combat.uxn.com/tracing.html
http://combat.uxn.com/index.html
- Spam.Abuse.net - "Fight Spam on the Internet!" information center
http://spam.abuse.net/
- CAUCE - Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
http://www.cauce.org
- About.com Spam Information - Learn the basics about spam
http://email.about.com/cs/spamgeneral
- Everything Email - Unsolicited E-mail (SPAM) Issues
http://everythingemail.net/email_unsolicited.html
- ZDNet Software Library Editors' Picks: Anti-Spam Tools
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/roundups/spam/rnp0897.html
- SpamCop - Spam Reporting and Filtering Software
http://spamcop.net
- ScamBusters.org - Stop Spam!
http://www.scambusters.org/stopspam/index.html
- MacInTouch - MacInTouch Spam and Scam Resources
http://www.macintouch.com/spam.shtml
- Spambot Beware - Glossary of Spam Related Terms
http://www.turnstep.com/Spambot/glossary.html
- Rahul.net Spam Glossary
http://www.rahul.net/falk/glossary.html
Best Regards,
mail2world.com Abuse Department
abuse@mail2world.com
