TechFocus Newsletter - May 2008

Control Spam, Gain Productivity

Every day millions of spam emails are sent out around the world. All types of companies and even Governments are taking drastic measures to control spam. If you look at what most people use the Internet for you'll find a majority of online activity is sending and receiving email. Email has become the lifeblood of modern society. Email has become as much a part of our lives as the light bulb, air transportation, and mobile phones.

What happens if we don't implement spam control globally? What would happen if all the spam filters and regulations controlling spam were suddenly abolished? The online world would grind to a screeching halt as email servers would become overloaded with the flood of spam. Global bandwidth would be consumed as spammers send out hundreds of millions of junk emails per day.

Without spam control the Internet in general would suffer from massive delays in sending and receiving email, due to the increase in the amount of spam email. Internet connection speeds would be adversely affected with businesses struggling to keep their servers online while their bandwidth would be choked by the additional spam.

Unfortunately, many of us now spend so much time filtering and deleting spam that our main focus - responding to legitimate email - has become a secondary task. With no end in sight of this spam tug-of-war, here are some tips to help reduce and maybe even stop spam.

6 Tips to Help You Reduce Spam

1. Always make sure that the "send me more info" box is not checked before you submit any online forms or applications.
2. Never reply to spam. This only verifies that the email address is a "live" address. Once this is known your email will be sold and resold to multiple spam lists.
3. Make notes of the company that is spamming you and do not purchase any products from them.
4. Stay away from all of those drawings for cars, vacations, boats, etc., that you see in Mall's and Summer Festivals or atleast, don't fill in your email address.
5. Listing or linking your email address on your website may attract spam. Consider using a challenge-response test such as CAPTCHA, before they can email you or submit an online form.
6. The best thing you can do is to use a spam filter. We recommend either a stand alone device or a hosted spam service from your Internet provider. The better ones have a quarantine area that will let you manage your spam and email.

Contact Infinity for more information on how a Spam Filter can help you Control Spam. Call 920.884.1482 to register for your 30-Day SpamGuard Trial.