Tips For Dealing With Unwanted E-mail or Spam
Electronic mail, or e-mail, has become a fast, effective and fun way to communicate, exchange documents, and even send friends and family pictures of
a new baby or a recent vacation. But electronic junk mail, or "spam," can take a lot of the fun and convenience out of e-mailing.
These tips can help reduce or avoid spam problems.
- Protect your e-mail address. This is the best way to protect from spam. To the extent possible, only provide your e-mail
address to people you know and trust. If you post a message on an Internet site with your e-mail addresses, any one has access to your address
and can share that address with others, including marketers. Spammers also get e-mail ddresses from jokes, stories and chain letters that make
the rounds on the Internet. So avoid sending or forwarding messages with a large list of addresses. Before providing your e-mail address
in an online registration, check the recipient’s privacy policy regarding the sharing of e-mail addresses. Avoid including your e-mail address
in other kinds of mailing lists.
- Ignore the messages. When you respond to spam, you are confirm to the sender that your address is a good e-mail account. Be
wary of responding to any message that asks you to respond in order to avoid future messages. Many senders simply use this ploy to see if your
e-mail account is active. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) probably offers filtering functions that allow you to automatically delete
certain messages. Click on the "Help" section of your e-mail program for this information, and call your ISP with any questions or
complaints about unwanted messages.
- Never give out your credit card number, bank account number or other personal information in response to an unsolicited e-mail, no matter how
legitimate the message appears to be.
- Never open attachments to e-mails from strangers. These attachments could have a virus that could cause serious damage to your
computer or your files, or cause potentially harmful messages to be sent to everyone in your e-mail address book. Always be suspicious about
e-mail from people or businesses you not familiar with.
- Contact your e-mail providor or ISP. Your e-mail account may come with a spam-blocking service.
To avoid receiving e-mail messages that contain material harmful to children, consider registering with Utah’s Child Protection Registry
at: www.utahkidsregistry.com
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