You can always count on the fact that somebody will want to ruin the party. Take email, for instance. Several years back, when your email client told you "you've got mail," that meant that someone had sent you a personal note that you definitely wouldn't want to miss. These days, "you've got mail" means that some con artist wants to help you arrange a loan, get a credit card, obtain refilled printer cartridges, or increase the size of certain body parts. Oh yes, the mail could be from the Queen of the Third World who needs you to help her get $642 million out of her country.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure-out that unsolicited email, or spam, has become more of a nuisance on the Internet than "junk mail" has become the bane of snail mail. On any given day, most email inboxes will receive ten times more spam than legitimate messages. This is costing our economy a lot of money, since highly paid office workers must now spend time sorting through hundreds of unsolicited emails every day. Congress has been promising to do something about this for years, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Fortunately, there are some steps that you can take to reduce the amount of spam that shows-up in your inbox. These actions will require a little work on your part, maybe even a little bit of a learning curve, but will result in a much less bloated inbox.

One of the first things you should do is realize that your Internet surfing habits are probably a major reason for the spam that gluts your email client. Are you always signing up for free stuff on the net, like grocery coupons? Do you simply love taking online personality tests that will identify your dream lover? Did you ever notice that these sites always require your email address? What do you think they're doing with all of the emails they're harvesting? They're making spam, baby.

Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to continue to get free stuff, and personal astrological forecasts, without clogging-up your inbox. To begin with, opt out. Most sights where you might be required to fill out a form will have a place where they ask something like, "Can we share your email with our trusted partners to offer you special deals?" If you have the word "sucker" written across your brow, click on "yes." The rest of you should click "no."

Of course, this step requires you to have trust in the integrity of the company that runs the site and you always run the risk of coming across a site operated by ex-Enron employees who could care less about honoring your wishes. Here, too, the solution is simple: just open a free email account with Hotmail or Yahoo and when you're surfing the Internet and want to sign-up for something that might result in a deluge of spam, give them the address to this free online account. This way, any spam your surfing habits generate will end-up in your Hotmal or Yahoo inbox. Since these accounts are used for nothing but catching unwanted email, you can simply delete their contents every week or so.

This action alone will greatly reduce the amount of new spam you receive, but it will do nothing to keep you from getting spammed by those who already have your email address. So what do you do about the messages that are already clogging-up you inbox and turning your email experience into a bad dream? First, after you've received a piece of spam, you never want to opt-out by clicking a link in the email that says something like "click here to quit receiving these emails." Remember, spammers are by definition unscrupulous and don't care if you wish to receive their spam or not. Clicking here will inform them that your email address is valid and will result in more spam.

The next thing to do is to set up a mailbox in your email client called "JunkMail." Then, create a filter to redirect any mail not specifically addressed to you in the "To" line to this new mailbox. Since many spammers don't address their bulk mails using the "To" line, most spam will end-up in your "JunkMail" box. This is not fool proof, however. Most spammers have already figured this out too, and now include all addresses in the "To" line. Also,some important mail will end up in your spam mailbox. Be sure to check the "JunkMail" box every day or so. When you find a message that should've gone to your inbox, like a bank statement, create a new filter directing messages "From" mybank.com to your inbox, to insure that all future mailing from that person or organization end up where you want them.

Some spammers will use a link to a web site for any graphics included in the email. In this case, when your preview the email, that site is immediately informed that your email account is open, which will result in more unwanted email. Check to see if your email client offers an option to disable web based graphics. This will cause web based graphics not to be displayed when you open an email, but will help you to reduce future spam.

Until Congress finally takes action to control spam, you'll never completely rid yourself of unwanted emails. But by following these simple steps, you can greatly reduce your spam burden.

If you would like to comment on this article, we invite you to send an email to letters@alternativeapproaches.com.

©Copyright 2003 by AlternativeApproaches.com

About the Author: Ms. Lin MacDoss is a web designer who has been working with desktop computers since the days of MS DOS 3.0. Since then, she's worked with many operating systems, including Windows 3x, Windows 95, Windows 98SE and various versions of the Mac OS. She says that she finally got tired of operating system failures (the infamous "blue screen of death") and made the switch from Windows 98SE to Mandrake Linux 9.0 in January of this year and hasn't experienced a system crash since. "Open source rules!" she proclaims.

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