People often ask me about email. In a relatively short period of time (in business terms) email has become an essential communications tool, ranking as high in importance as cell phones and surpassing facsimiles. You need only look to the way business people desperately gaze into their Crackberrys to imagine how vital an assortment of electrons reorganized as pixels on a screen can seem. And whether on a handheld or on a computer, nearly everyone has to deal with spam.
Blackberry's (the more common name) have heightened the problem, especially when service providers like Rogers, Bell and Telus will charge as much as $12 per megabyte (!) for data overages. Yup, the dealer is making a killing on these addictive little devices, and there isn’t much we can do about it. However, it is a bit irksome when you pay this kind of money for data service and the majority of your messages are spam. Not only must you endure endless solicitations, but to add insult to injury, you actually pay a handsome sum for the privilege. In the case of Rogers Wireless, their spam filtering is so woefully inadequate it seems like it may not be mediocrity of service but rather deliberate omission——after all, that data overage charge goes straight to their bottom line.
Those of you who have managed to abstain from Blackberry dependency (good for you!) may still be inundated with an enormous amount of spam on your computer. Sorting through hundreds or even thousands of messages every morning may have become a ritual, but is not quite as enjoyable as the visit to the coffee pot or catching the latest gossip at the water cooler is it? So what can you do? The best way is to start from the top.
1. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of gelled-meat-like substance
You probably know this, but be careful giving out your email address. Don’t put it on contest entry forms or enter it online casually. If you must, use a second, less important account for these transactions. Gmail is a great choice for this. Keep your primary email address off your website if you can, and be cautious about using it on blogs. The Russian slash and burn method of controlling spam is to change your address entirely, but we hope it doesn’t come to that. Before you start to pack up and move, try this:
2. Lazy mail server, you do it!
If you have email, you have a mail server——somewhere. Whether it is in your office, downtown or in another country, it will almost certainly have some spam-filtering ability. Most of you will use a type of hosted mail, where the mail server is not in your office. Find out how to turn on spam filtering for your mail account. The best way to filter mail is to get the server to do the heavy lifting so your computer/email client does not have to, after all, mail is its job.
3. You can do it…these apps can help.
You can install a spam filter, such as Mailwasher, that will grab your email, divide up the good and bad and then deliver to your email client the good. These are great for individuals and small businesses, but require that another program be running on your computer simultaneously as your email client, which adds a layer of complexity to an already complex system. Still, if your mail server just doesn’t do the job, these apps may help.
4. The resident spam filterer
Mail clients, like Outlook, Outlook Express, Entourage, Apple’s Mail, Eudora, Lotus Notes, usually have some junk mail filtering. This is a good secondary spam filter to be used in conjunction with
the server’s spam filtering, but usually cannot handle a big spam problem on their own.
The Barracuda spam filter firewall. The ultimate spam killer.
5. The heavy artillery of spam killers
Spam has become such a problem in businesses that companies specializing in spam detection and removal are manufacturing firewall devices and developing specialized software that act as a barrier to incoming spam messages. Both the software and devices are sophisticated and often come with a sophisticated price, but offer the ability to keep spam out from an entire organization, process a million messages a day or more and even provide a backup mail server in the event that your mail server crashes.
6. Want to send me an email? Sign here please.
You can sign up for a service that will ask people to register in order to send you an email. This may be absolutely necessary, if you are extremely popular, like, for instance Bill Gates, or you just have a select group of people you want emailing you. Still, the extra step involved may be enough of an annoyance for a customer to not bother (I haven’t emailed Bill Gates in years). It is a judgment call on your part.
These suggestions are not going to eliminate every single spam message you receive, but thoughtfully implemented, can reduce that flooding torrent of unwanted messages down to a trickle.
Internet Monitoring and Spam: Stop SPAM
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