It *used* to be possible to eliminate junk email from your mailbox (at least for a while). However, the steps were somewhat drastic (which is why I don't normally recommend them), and given the arrival of the "phone book" style spamming attack, even this method isn't guaranteed to work anymore. But many of you may be interested in trying anyways, so read on...The problem is that once you start getting junk email, you're pretty much stuck with it at that email address. This is because junk emailers sell their lists of email addresses to each other. As long as you can stay off these lists, you'll be okay. But once you get your address on just *one* of these lists, it's only a matter of time before it gets sold to another spammer, who will use it to compile his own list and sell it to yet another spammer, and so on, and so forth, etc. Because of this fact, once you start getting junk email, you can expect to continue getting it.
The only way to stop from getting junk email is to (A) change your email address; and (B) make sure that your address stays OFF of the address lists used by the junk emailers. (Incidentally, lots of folks have left Erols "because of the spam," gone to another ISP, and then sent me snotty emails saying how much better the other ISP is at blocking junk email, when in fact the only reason they've seen a brief respite in the spam is because they changed their email address when they went to the new ISP. Lots of other folks have left some other ISP "because of the spam" and come to Erols/RCN, and they send me glowing email about how much better we are at blocking spam, but again it's due mainly to the simple fact that they changed their email address when they signed up with us.)
Changing your email address is pretty easy from a technical perspective, but it can often be a pain in the keister to notify all your friends and associates of your new email address. But assuming you're willing to go through the trouble, the next step is to keep it out of the hands of the junk emailers. Here are some suggestions on how to avoid having your email harvested by spammers:
Pretty grim, eh? And the above isn't even a comprehensive list. But that's the unspoken, intangible price of spam. If you want to avoid getting junk email, you've got to insulate yourself from many common Internet activities. If you want to interact with the Internet to any degree, you run the risk of getting junk email. That's the trade-off.
- Don't pick a common name (like helen@erols.com or eric@erols.com) for your email address. Most spammers will automatically send to email addresses based on a common name, and choosing an email address like this is a guaranteed way to get junk email. Also, read the bit about "phone book attacks" here for other ideas on what sort of username to avoid
- Do not post your new email address anywhere in the newsgroups, in any shape, form, or fashion. Most of the email addresses used by junk emailers have been harvested from the newsgroups. Even trying to "munge" your email address (listing it as "abuse@NOSPAM.erols.com") or "verbalize" your email address (listing it as "abuse [at] erols [dot] com") will likely result in it being manually added to some list of email addresses.
- Do not put your email address anywhere on your websites in the form "abuse@erols.com," especially not with a "mailto:" link. It's probably safe, however, to put your address in the format "abuse [at] erols [dot] com" on the site, provided that you don't link to it with a "mailto:".
- Do not fill out any web-based survey forms, as these are often used to generate address lists.
- Do not subscribe to any mailing lists, as these are often trolled by spammers looking for addresses (and many allow the subscribers to just download the email addresses of all the list members).
- Do not put your real email address in the spot marked "Email address" in your favorite IRC client.
- Do not order products on-line as this is also a way address lists are generated.
One alternative that avoids this problem is to open up a completely separate email account while still keeping your old one active. Then you can designate one of these addresses as "private" and one as "public." This is what I've done with my personal accounts. My public account is aburner@erols.com. I use this account whenever I post to the newsgroups, or join a mailing list, or fill out a web-based survey form. Naturally, the aburner@erols.com account gets lots of junk email.
But I also have a private account that I only use when corresponding with known and trusted friends and relatives. In this way, I can still interact with others on the Internet, but I can make sure that my important mail isn't cluttered up by junk.