How Much E-mail Spam Do You Receive?

A recent Microsoft security report has said that 97% of all e-mail sent over the Internet is unwanted, and is quickly filling up inboxes with tons of spam. However, MessageLabs have said that according to their research, only 81% of all e-mails sent are unwanted. So, who are we to believe?

Most advanced web or technology users will tell you that they have no doubt that the great majority of e-mail sent is spam. Millions of people around the world open up their inbox each and every day to find hundreds more bogus advertisements for drugs, sexual aids, scams, rip-offs and virus infected attachments sent to their e-mail address. The less experinced user may also constantly recieve updates from a company they may have previously purchased one product from, but then forgot to tick the box on their web form telling them that they didn’t want to be kept updated about that company’s latest products or what’s going on.

MessageLabs also claimed that the rates of spam fell at the end of 2008, because an Internet Service Provider which had been hacked and commanded to send out spam e-mails was shut down. However, they did say that this number is set to increase again soon. The following tips are more for beginner to moderate user, although some more advanced users may find them helpful.

My Tips:

1) When you are filling out an e-mail form for a company you are not particularly interested in, ensure that you use the options on the form to inform the company that you don’t wish to have any promotional offers, company updates or product information sent to your e-mail address.

2) Be extremely careful who you give your e-mail to and how. When you’re handing over your e-mail to a company, forum or website make sure you check their Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions and ensure that they promise to you that they will not share, sell or rent your e-mail address to any third parties. If they don’t it’s best that you stay away. Also make sure you only share your e-mail address with people you know, you can rely on and with companies that seem legit enough.

3) If you have forgotten when filling out a form to inform the company you want no updates to them, when you recieve and e-mail from them, make sure that you find an Unsubscribe e-mail address or someway from the e-mail of telling them to cease sending you messages. Don’t reply to their messages and ask them, because the chances are the e-mail you recieved was automated. If you can’t find one, try checking out their website.

4) Be wary when opening e-mail attachments. NEVER open an e-mail attachment from somebody that you aren’t farmiliar with or from a random sender or company, no matter the file format. The report from Microsoft said in the second half of 2008, more and more viruses were being sent through PDF format (Adobe Acrobat Reader). A report said that Russia and Brazil have the highest rate of infection when it comes to e-mail viruses and malware, followed to Turkey and Serbia and Montenegro.

5) Do not post your e-mail address publicly online. You will notice that some services, such as Facebook, change an e-mail address posted on your profile into an image, so crawlers and spiders going through web pages cannot pick it up and start sending spam to it. If posting your e-mail address is crucial, make sure that you intercept part of it with a section that the sender must remove so that automation services cannot send mail to you, as they would ultimately end up sending it to the wrong place.

6) If posting your e-mail address publicly online, try setting up another, free e-mail specifically for this cause (you can link numerous e-mail addresses into e-mail clients), or you can create a temporary inbox with sites such as MailCatch.

What I want to know is how much e-mail spam do you recieve? How careful are you where you post your e-mail address and who you give it to? Are you subject to uncontrollable amounts of spam e-mail? If not, how do you manage to control your inbox and what do you use to eliminate spam? In your experince, what is the best free e-mail provider to tackle spam? Have you any recomendations how to prevent spam? Leave a comment.