If you've been active on the web for awhile, then you're probably getting more junk e-mail or Spam, than you care to. Unfortunately, regardless of how much, or little, Spam you receive now, it's only going to get worse as the Internet continues to grow.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that Spam will be the death of the web, or anything so dire as that. However, when you're in a hurry to check e-mail and have to wait for fifty junk messages to download just to get the one important e-mail you were actually expecting, it can be quite an inconvenience. Worse yet is if an important message is overlooked entirely, buried in a sea of junk e-mail that overwhelms your inbox.

While you'll probably never be entirely free from receiving junk e-mail there are several things you can do to minimize its impact on your productivity.

Get a separate “junk box” - Go to Yahoo or Hotmail, both of which have Spam blocking technology built in to their systems, and sign up for a free e-mail account that you can use for online forms and transactions. Then, if you're asked to provide an e-mail address while at a web site that's likely to either sell your e-mail address to online marketers or to add you to their marketing e-mail list, simply give them this junk e-mail address. You can check the junk box once a week or so, just to see if there's anything truly interesting there, without having these solicitations encumber your business and personal e-mail correspondence.

Never rat out your friends - If you're sending friends and acquaintances web-based greeting cards, signing them up for online contests or giving out their e-mail addresses to Web sites for any reason whatsoever, then you're simply turning them over to the junk marketers. No matter how innocent a web site may make it sound, if they ask for the e-mail addresses of your friends, they're going to abuse those addresses, and yours too!

To “unsubscribe” or not- Most Spam now contains removal instructions so that you can presumably get off the sender's marketing list. However, unless the message originates from a reputable web site, requesting removal of your e-mail address may simply bring you more junk, not less. Reputable companies cannot afford to go back on their word, so if Yahoo, Amazon or Kmart is sending you promotional e-mail and you want off, go ahead and follow the removal instructions. On the other hand, if the Spam is from some company or organization you've never heard of, usually selling products or services of dubious value, then you probably don't want to send a reply of any sort. To do so would enhance the market value of your e-mail address, as you're now a “verified” e-mail address. Your reply just proved that your e-mail account is both valid and active; and now you're address will most likely be sold to Spam marketers more often than before.

Web-based filtering - While many e-mail programs can help filter out unwanted Spam, they usually involve an extra step and can be just another hassle to deal with. Additionally, Anti-Spam software will typically delete the clutter, but not before downloading it for analysis first. So, while you might not have to see the Spam, it still slows down your mail retrieval.

However, there are newer online filtering services becoming available. Brightmail.com is an interesting service that let's you continue to use your existing e-mail account, but runs all the messages through their filtering engine first. The best thing about this service is that it's free to individuals. Additionally, there's no software to install, and if a junk e-mail slips through the filter, you can forward it to their “junk” department for analysis. Thus, the filtering becomes more comprehensive as time goes on.

While it doesn't catch all incoming Spam, and it does still slow down the retrieval of your e-mail somewhat, it certainly seems to offer some pretty tantalizing benefits.

Published: October 24, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.