Spam, I Am

Well Ann, I can't speak for others but I can assure you that when you unsubscribe to a TeeBeeDee newsletter, you're just unsubscribing. (Yup, I work here). We don't sell, rent, or barter our member emails to anyone. Check out our privacy policy via the link at the bottom of this page.

And actually, that's a good tip...I think it's a great idea to review privacy policies before you subscribe to anything. We all have a tendency to just click on "I Accept" but it's advantageous to actually read the fine print...

And one tip from me... I have an email address that I use just for newsletter subscriptions. I check in there a couple of times a week to review and read the ones that interest me. Having them separate means that if anyone is spamming me, at least it's not going to my primary address.

I'm afraid spammers have indeed been known to use unsubscribe messages (and anything else you reply with) as a verification method, as your dinner companions suggested. And yes, verified email addresses are more valuable to spammers, so I suppose they would command a premium when they sell the lists to each other.

Basically, if there's something sneaky and annoying that one can do with email, spammers doing it -- it's part and parcel of that slimy trade. You should also stay away from the forwarding of chain letters, since they use those to harvest email addresses.

As far as evasive actions go once your name is on their lists, I've been having great success using gmail as my main email client, because it has an automatic spam filter and a Report Spam button. My email address is posted publicly on the web for spammers to be able to add it to their lists easily (this is probably the worst way to expose yourself to spam), and I still only see 5-10 spam emails a day, out of over a hundred or so legit emails.

If you use an email client rather than gmail or another web-based email service, your ISP can be a factor in how much spam you get. Plus, Apple Mail, Entourage and Microsoft Outlook each have spam/junk mail filters that can block much of what still gets past your ISP. You can also configure these clients to report spam to centralized blacklists if they make it past your ISP and spam filter and into your inbox, so that they'll have a tougher time sending that same spam message in the future. We'll look into putting together a guide on how to do that for the major email clients.

I actually rarely get spam. Maybe yahoo does a good job of filtering. Most of the junk mail I get is from something I actually have or had a legitimate relationship with, and when I unsubscribe from those, all that happens is I stop getting their emails. Perhaps if you unsubscribe from something you never subscribed to in the first place and that you've never heard of (especially if it is peddling v1@gR@ or something), you are merely calling attention to yourself.

One of the best products I have used in a long time is SpamArrest. It is a great way to completely eliminate spam - only allowing through what you want. Your friends and family can easily get to you as well by clicking on a one time link.

If you are inundated with spam and hate it as much as I do, check out www.spamarrest.com. Another great thing about this product is that you can add up to 5 email address for one cost - ensuring you whole family is protected from this ultimate productivity waster.

If you want to check out a site but are unfamiliar with the sender go to http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

and check out the domain owner. If its in Russia or China I'd take a pass.

Also if the same address keeps sending junk you can block the address and everything they send is deleted or treated as spam.

It would be nice but unenforceable to have a Do Not Email list like the Do Not Call List.

Hello Ann,

I did exactly what you would do until I heard some computer geek on television advise against it because it did as you said........the opposite.

Like BrianneMiller, I too have more then one email account. My web-based Yahoo account is the one that I use whenever I have to subscribe. Yahoo has a Bulk file that filters most of the Spam. The few that show up in your inbox allow you to click on Spam so that they can be added to the Spam database. And if you come across a unusually bad email, you can open it and then scroll down to the bottom righthand corner and click on Full Headers This allows you to view where the email really came from. If you report abuse to Yahoo, they ask that you click on Full Headers and then send it to them embedded in the email rather then as an attachment.