When it comes to email hosting services, there is nothing worse or more annoying than receiving countless number of junk mails (aka spam) everyday. In this article we will examine how you end up getting so many junk mails and a number of preventive measures which you can take to stop receiving spam emails.

So what is a spam mail? Spam can be seen as a form of electronic messaging abuse, when people unethically send messages in bulk to an audience which never approved of such spam mails in the first place. Nowadays, the first thing which comes up to your mind when think of spam is one of the following topics: Money reclaims from banks, ‘personal’ emails from famous figures like Ban Ki Moon and Barack Obama, Viagra and Acai Berry sales. You wonder why they continue to send these unattractive emails despite the spammers knowing they will only get around 1-2% of the emails to be responded out of the million spam mails they send in batches. Unfortunately, that 1-2% is still economically viable for spammers which is why the volume of spam continues to increase day by day.

Spam is not just felt in the email world, you will find spam on websites, forums, mobile phone texts and even video sharing websites such as Youtube. According to security firm Mcafee, spam volume has increased by as much as 141% since March. So why are the government and internet firms not taking any action to stop the increasing volume of spam? In truth, they are except you can say they are putting in little effort to tackle a gigantic problem. Another problem is cooperation and uniformity. There will be large internet service providers which take every step to ensure their service is free of spam, while you also have unknown internet service providers who provide a place for spammers which is equivalent to a safe haven. A few years ago, the internet account of a spammer shut down and the volume of spam reportedly dropped by over 25%, just by removing that account alone. However, the spam volume picked itself up and started increasing after the spam operation transferred to an internet service provider with less stringent regulations.

Spam mail preventive measures

So what can we do as normal computer users to tackle this increasingly worrying spam problem? Firstly, there are many basic steps which you can take to ensure that you are receiving no spam emails at all. One of the main ways in which spammers collect email addresses is by either using a technique known as email harvesting or create bogus websites which require prospective users to submit their email addresses. The next time you register for an online account, read the website’s privacy policy rule carefully. Ideally, you only want to sign up for a website which states that they will never give out your email address or personal information to third party users. If you follow this basic guideline then you really should not be receiving any junk mails at all.

If you are already receiving a handful of spam then consider installing an anti spam appliance. anti spam filter are available in both appliance and software form. You have anti spam appliances like Barracuda Networks which are suitable for blocking spam at a large scale. If you are only preventing spam in one computer then you can install free spam filters or use email hosting services like Gmail which already comes with an effective spam filtering feature. anti spam appliances are most costly but they are actually cost effective if you consider the volume of spam you will get without one.

If you have a website set up with a contact us page then make sure your email address is not visible anywhere. Lazy people will set up a mailto: and link a button directly to your email address but do not do the same! Use php coding instead which will ensure that spammers will have a difficult time locating your email address on the website.