Spam - Where Does Spam Come From?
Spam is one of the most horrible things on the internet. The internet can make our lives much easier and more convenient, but the internet is not all good since it is also cursed by spam. Spam is a huge problem and it affects every single inbox all over the world. If you haven't experienced spam yet then you should consider yourself very lucky.
What is Spam?
The name spam is given to unsolicited email. Spam gets its name from the tinned meat product that people don't like. Monty Python featured a sketch where the word spam was used very often as a joke. While the sketch was really funny spam itself isn't.
Legitimate Marketing
Spam is completely different to email marketing. Email marketing, if done correctly, is legal and doesn't upset people that much. Email marketing is where businesses build lists of people to market products to legitimately. This is a way to market products using email without breaking the Can-Spam act.
The people who ask for permission are not spamming anyone. These emails also include opt-out links which will ensure that people can choose to leave the list if they're not interested in receiving the emails anymore.
This is a legitimate form of email marketing and is not considered spam. These legitimate marketers will use either opt-in or double opt-in systems. Opt in simply means that you have requested the emails, and double opt in emails mean that as well as requesting the information you have also accepted a confirmation email.
Blocking Spam
If you've had enough of spam and want to do something about it then you will want to investigate various ways to block the spam from ever reaching your inbox. There are a number of ways that you can block spam.
Make Sure Your Email is Private
Your email needs to be kept private. While you might realize this there are actually quite a few ways that your email can get into the wrong hands.
If you ever have friends or family who send out lots of emails to people without using the blind carbon copy then these people will be able to take a look at these emails. It's quite common for these emails to get forwarded time and time again which will leave your email exposed.
You should also give this in return. Make sure that you put people's addresses in the blind carbon copy field. Whenever forwarding emails you should remove the other emails addresses.
Don't Open Spam
You should never open anything that looks like spam. If you do then quite often the spammer is aware that you have read it. This will flag your mailbox as active and this will cause the spammers to step up their attacks.
You also need to be careful, if it's a spam message then don't click any links. You shouldn't even click the links if they claim to be unsubscribe links. These could download all sorts of things to your computer.
Other options for avoiding spam include installing hardware and software based spam filters which will sift through your email messages and make sure that anything that gets to your inbox is a genuine email.
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