Porn, Spam, and
Filters
Do
you want off those obnoxious list for Porn sites? Well, it's tough.
There's not really a good answer to that one. I don't think anyone
has a sure fire way to keep them from sending that junk to you once
they get your address. Here's the long and short of it.
These are some things you can do to minimize it.
1. Never, ever, reply or respond in any way - just delete the
e-mail. When you ask to be removed, all it does is tell them they
have a "real" e-mail address. After all, anyone who would send out
junk like that probably doesn't really care if you're angry about
being on the list. So, don't respond to junk mail. Just delete it.
Besides, most of them use a fake e-mail address, so you can't reply
to it anyhow.
2. Be careful what you sign up for and tell your friends not to sign
you up for stuff.
You don't want to accidentally sign up or get on a list that freely
sells its subscribers to anyone who will buy (no, we don't - in case
you're wondering) and they didn't inform you of this.
Unfortunately it works the same way online as it does in the real
world of direct marketing. You purchase something and give your
phone number away. The place you make your purchase from then sells
your information and suddenly you start getting telemarketers
calling constantly (especially at dinner).
So, maybe you signed up for or purchased something on the web and
the company sold your e-mail address. Now your address is on a CD
with millions of others that's being sold for $150.00 to whoever
wants to buy it.
My advice on this one is to make sure whoever you're giving your
info to will respect your privacy and not sell your information to a
third party. If you're one of the thousands of people who have
purchased software from us in the past, you probably noticed that we
have privacy policy that promises we won't give your info away. Make
sure any site you give you info to has a similar policy.
3. Another way to get your e-mail address on these lists is to post
stuff somewhere. You post a classified ad or stick a link on a free
for all links page and your address is sitting out there for the
taking. There are little programs that "harvest" e-mail address from
all over the net, so any time you post something, you risk getting
added to a list somewhere.
Chat rooms, especially on AOL, are good targets for these e-mail
harvesters too.
Sometimes it's a good idea to maintain a free e-mail address for
this kind of thing, so you can avoid getting lots of spam in your
regular e-mail account. Check out Yahoo or Hotmail for these.
4. And finally - tell people to use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) to
forward you e-mail. Have you ever gotten something forwarded to you
with hundreds of e-mail addresses in the header? If so, your e-mail
address may be getting unintentionally passed all over the net. Tell
people to BCC forwarded messages to you so your address isn't
exposed to the world.
