Even though it is still quite awhile until the prime-time December-shopping season, many of us have already noticed an increase in the spam in our email boxes.

How did they know my email address?

Spammers can:

“harvest” email addresses from web pages,
subscribe to other mailing lists to gain access to other subscribers’ addresses,
use programs to send spam to computer-generated email addresses. They do not need to know whether the generated address exists or not, that’s what ‘undeliverable’ bounce-backs are for,
purchase your email address from companies that specialize in #3 above.
What can I do to fight spam?

The simplest way is to filter your emails. If you get spam messages from email addresses of a particular domain name or IP address, you block that domain name/IP address. If you get spam about “Viagra”, you block all messages with “Viagra” in the message.

This is content filtering, which can be achieved using the mail processing rules and content filtering rules in your Doteasy webmail system.

If you are currently on the old Doteasy webmail system, contact us for a free upgrade to the new Doteasy SmartMail system. The Doteasy SmartMail system offers a very intuitive, open-ended content filtering processor that allows you to set your own filtering criteria for spam detection and email-handling.
Another way to filter email is by using an anti-spam program. The Doteasy Spam & Email Virus Protection service is an optional email upgrade service that scans and filters your emails against hourly-updated spam definitions. It uses a scoring system to grade the email based on keywords and other characteristics commonly used by spammers. Emails are scanned at the server-level, prior to delivery to your inbox, and then handled based on pre-set criteria, or criteria customized by you (ie. you can further train the filters to work better for you).

The service is US$6.95/month and it includes protection for all email accounts under your domain. Note that we do offer a 30-day full money-back guarantee, that way you can test it out before you commit to the full 6-month billing term.

Click here for more information.
If you prefer using a POP email client to access your emails, you may want to check out the Mozilla Thunderbird.

You can further install an anti-spam program onto your computer to help you scan emails in your POP mail client. McAfee Spam Killer is one of such programs.
Anything else I can do?

I personally keep a few email addresses, and I designate a couple of them for newsletters and other online subscriptions. This way, I am not releasing my critical email addresses to people/companies I don’t trust.
Use an email form instead of exposing your email address on your web pages.
Never respond to spam. Remember, all these spammers need is a handful of responders for their spamming activities to be worthwhile.

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