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    What to do about those filthy junk emails?
    Or, SPAM- and how to stop it for good!

    Our family values privacy, and, if you're like us, your family values privacy as well. You can avoid getting spammed by keeping your email address completely private (i.e. don't sign up for any lists of any kind, and make sure your email address isn't printed on any webpage). But what about your business website, or the helpful person in your organization who listed your email address on the website and thought that nobody would abuse the email addresses because the site is just used by members of your group? You'll still eventually get hundreds of unsolicited commercial email (UCE, or spam) every day because search engines are always crawling the web, and they see everything... and then they publish what they find.

*   Regain the power to keep your computer clean from spam! We suggest the MailWasher software for excellent protection. (Download free trial program, or read the full information.) MailWasher Pro squashes, prevents, and eliminates junk emails. Buy it here, or upgrade your free version of this most powerful anti-spam software. Still priced reasonably, considering all the junk that it protects you from.

    But I'm not a business, I'm just an average person...

    As an individual you too can do things to prevent spam and viruses from spreading to your friends and family. Three simple things you can do will protect you and your friends from getting extra spam emails and the viruses they sometimes carry. No technical knowledge is required. Anyone, even with no fancy computer skills, can do it!

    1.  Stop sending email with all the addresses in the "TO:" or the "CC:" line. You don't want to give away all the private addresses of your friends. Do start using the "BCC:" for multiple names. When sending email to a group, always use the "Blind Carbon Copy" option instead. It's simple, remember to use BCC and their email addresses will never be exposed to the public again. And tell your friends to use this same trick, and you will benefit too!

    2.  Resist the urge to use FWD (forwarding messages) when you get a "chain letter" type of email. We've all seen these before, they beg you to forward the message to every person you know. Or, sign this email and send it on to the next person, or you will be blessed if you send this and cursed if you don't.... Just stop reacting to those kinds of emails. You are being manipulated. Most of those stories have been disproven long ago and they are urban myths. One damaging fake story that comes up every few years is the false petition to have the FCC ban religious broadcasting. This mythical peitition keeps coming back in various forms, and it really makes a person or an organization look bad when they help spread the myth. Check every story before you resend it to anyone, the "PurPortal" site helps you check out your story against a databse of other reports. http://www.purportal.com/ Also, the Urban Myths and Folklore section of About.Com can help you discern truth vs fiction. http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm

    3.  Never hit "unsubscribe" when you get an unsolicited junk mail. (Use the MailWasher program, or manually block them with filters in your email program.) Spammers are dishonest to begin with, they forge the headers showing where the email comes from, and only want you to prove to them that your address has a real-live person reading the email. If you make any response, by clicking on their website or clicking on "remove me" or "unsubscribe" in the spam, your address will be sold to the next spammer as a very valuable "live person" email address. If you don't remember requesting the information and if you didn't subscribe to a newsletter, leave it alone.

    On the other hand, we're not saying you should ignore the unsubscribe feature of a legitimate newsletter which you requested. Almost all legitimate newsletters and ezines now use the "double opt-in" method of subscription verification. This is where you request a subscription, the publisher acknowledges your request and you must purposely choose to reply to them before your subscription starts. If you ignore the verification request then your address is never subscribed. This is the honest and upright way to handle free online subscriptions.

    What can my business do, we MUST have email on our website...

    Businesses get a particularly large volume of unsolicited commercial emails which are just as vile as any other spams. Businesses can do at least four things to minimize and even completely prevent being listed on unwanted email lists.

    1.  Right now, get something like the "MailWasher Pro" program and start bouncing those spams as "undeliverable email." It's vital for business like any good anti-virus program. For business it's indispensible! This technique will actually stop the spammers who are verifying your email address and then selling it on a CD ROM to some poor gullible person who purchased the "Make-money-at-home by sending bulk email" program disk for hundreds of dollars.

    2.  Have your webmaster update your site and remove all text and hypertext links that contains your email address. Replace all occurances of your email addresses with graphic images of your email addresses and do not program them as clickable links. However, some customers will still insist on clicking a button to get in contact with you. If you want to keep them happy you'll need to use a little bit of programming which is outlined in step 3 below.

    3.  Replace all email text and links on your site with a web-form. This requires programming and is beyond the skill level of beginning HTML programmers. Most do-it-yourself web editing programs will not be able to generate the specific type of form you need. Ask your programmer for a "cgi-bin FormMail program" that "uses a variable name instead of an actual email address." What we mean is this, the form on the web page does not actually have the email address listed in the code. The email recipient is only listed as something like "recipient=1" or something similar.

    If this is confusing and you don't have your own cgi-bin programmer on staff, you may contract with one of our consultants at The Family Company to set up this system for your website. The time saved alone will make it worth your small investment! Call

    4.  Follow the guidelines for individuals given in this article previously. (1.) Stop sending email with extra names in the "TO:" line or the "CC:" lines, and always use "BCC:" (Blind Carbon Copy) instead! Send out a memo, put it on a sticky note on every computer monitor, write it on your screen saver program, make an official policy, or enforce it any way you have to, but be sure to do it. And then remember to (2.) resist the urge to resend those FWD: emails when they come into the office. And (3.) never hit "unsubscribe" when you get an unsolicited junk mail. (Use the MailWasher program or manually block them with filters in your email program.)