Anti-Spam Tips

Prevention is better than cure!

Tips to prevent getting spam in the first place:

1. Do not use a personal address which you cannot change later (such as the one from your internet provider) on the internet. Instead, open a free email account at google, hotmail or yahoo for public use. Use the private one for family and friends only.
2. Never post your email address on any public locations, such as forums, guest books, news groups, personal/ user profiles, publications, etc.
3. Never submit your email address to a site you do not trust.
4. Never submit your email address if it is not strictly required.
5. If you own a domain name, do not use the common aliases "info", "webmaster" and "postmaster". Instead use a non-standard alias like yourname(@domain.com) or comments or info89
6. If you own a domain name, do not use a catch-all function, but block all email to non-existing email aliases.
7. Change your email address once in a while, for example by taking a random number (name769@domain.com, or once a year: name2005@domain.com).
8. Use our free services, which make sure your email address cannot be read by computer systems who collect email addresses everywhere, but only by human visitors.

What to do against spam when you get it:

1. Use a spam filter to automatically filter your incoming email messages to delete spam. Many internet providers also provide this service. Note: most well-known spam filtering software is very effective, but some are not and may also delete emails you do want to receive.
2. Use anti-spam software like that by Symantec (Norton), which does the same as above and prevents that hidden tracking images in spam messages report back to the sender that the message has arrived.
3. Never click on any links in spam messages, and delete them right away, no matter how "interesting" it may be. By clicking on links, you confirm your email address and interest in the messages, and will soon receive much more spam because of this. So, do not support spammers!
4. Change your email address. Make sure you notify people that you email with using this address, about this change so they can still reach you. Block the old address or remove it.