How do I prevent Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) or Spam?

Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) or Spam is a problem that plagues almost everyone. It's not only a problem for end-users. Spam congests servers, costs money by using bandwidth, and provides endless complaints to technical support.

There are ways to limit your reception of Spam. For someone to Spam you, they typically have to get your e-mail address*. This is usually done in one of the following ways:

1) Reading your e-mail address from a web page.
Solution:Don't put your e-mail address on a web page. Unfortunately, this is often impractical. Some other solutions are to add tags that a human can still figure out. Such as jsmith@NOSPAM.mydomain.com. In this case a human knows to send the e-mail to jsmith@mydomain.com.

Another option is to use what are known as ASCII characters. For example, if placed into an HTML file, jsmith@mydomain.com will appear as jsmith@mydomain.com in a web browser. (The letters @ indicate the "@" symbol to a browser.) In this case, some of the less-sophisticated e-mail sniffers may overlook your e-mail address.

2) Reading your name from a domain record.
Every domain name (a .com, .net, or .org) has a corresponding record. Customers who own their domain name usually are have an e-mail address listed on that record. Sometimes you need to receive important information about your domain record, thus it is important that you keep a valid e-mail address listed on it.

Solution: Create a secondary e-mail address that you use only for updating your domain name record. If you do this through HotMail, Yahoo, or any other free service, be sure to check your account from time to time. These services may delete inactive accounts, therefore leaving security vulnerabilities for your domain name.

3) Opt-in services
Some companies ask you for your e-mail address and share information with other companies. This may include opt-in services, such as on-line newsletters, and greeting card services. Others may include product surveys, and registration cards.

Solution: Do not put your e-mail address anywhere it isn't necessary. Ask your friends and relatives to refrain from entering your e-mail address into any system. This includes things seemingly as innocuous as an on-line card service or prize giveaway entries.

Summary
The biggest step to reducing, and possibly eliminating spam is to withhold your e-mail address. This means being careful not to enter your e-mail address on any card, or form (on-line or print media) in which it is not absolutely necessary.

Being reserved with your e-mail address helps reduce the chance of marketers finding your e-mail address. This in turn keeps you off the spam databases that are sold to other marketing firms. Overall this can lead to a substantial reduction in spam e-mail.

Summary
If all else fails, contact Digital Indigo and ask about our free Spam filters. In a matter of seconds Digital Indigo can add a filter that blocks a significant amount of UCE. For advantages/disadvantages of this setup, please click here.

* In some cases spammers take guesses of common names until a SPAM goes through. For instance they may try jsmith@hotmail.com, jsmith@yahoo.com, or jsmith@netscape.com.

Related Links:
Digital Indigo's UCE (Spam) filters
Configuring Outlook / Entourage to use Digital Indigo's UCE Filter