Dealing with spam and how changeofaddress.com can help.
These are some of the ways we've found useful in minimising the time spent dealing with spam. Your comments and contributions are sought-you can use our contact page to send us a note.First, its best to avoid spam in the first place. Filters, even using smart algorithms, take time and figuring to administer and there is some risk that a wanted item will be blocked or spam let through. The waste of time spent scanning rejected mail is annoying. So take care in the way you allow an email address to circulate: don't pass it out indiscriminately. Particular things to avoid are posting it on a website, including it in a usenet (newsgroup) posting, or giving it out in a survey on the web or in a shopping mall.
Its often a good idea to have several addresses so that you can use them for different purposes. One might be used only for friends and business, and be kept as secure as possible. This might be an address at your internet service provider (ISP). Another less secure address might be used for registering at websites, which sometimes authenticate your enquiry by sending you mail at an address you specify. A free address, for example at yahoo.com or hotmail.com, can be used for this. There are sites which provide "disposable" addresses designed to be used only while they remain useful. We have found sneakemail.com good.
Use of these guidelines will delay the interval before a new address starts to accumulate spam. Eventually though, an address will begin to get spammed. For example, your contacts are likely to have your address listed in the address books on their computers and other devices. These are sometimes accessed maliciously, for example by a 'trojan' program, hidden in an email, which collects addresses and sends them back to its makers.
changeofaddress.com can be used along with these strategies to provide a 'net' to catch correspondents who haven't caught up with your latest move in address. There's a risk of losing contact with someone who has only an old adddress to contact you by, each time you abandon an address or use a 'disposable' for a short time. If they know about changeofaddress.com they have a last chance to keep in touch with you.
For example, each time you tell someone your address you can mention that they can go to changeofaddress.com if it bounces. In a usenet post or on a website you can even give a real address, with a note to use changeofaddress.com when it no longer works.And a final idea, for use if you're really getting tired of spam. Enter an abandoned or invalid email address as your old address at changeofaddress.com, and tell people they can get your current address through us. This blocks spammers completely: even if they take the trouble to come here and enter the address you give out (and spammers deal in bulk addresses so they don't have much time for chasing addresses one-by-one), they'll still have to write to you asking politely if they can have your new address.