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Wage War on the Junk Email
March 16, 2002
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* Please be assured that I will never sell or share
your email addresses with anyone else! I respect
your privacy!* (no spamming here!)
Hello Everybody!
Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all!! There is almost 700 subscribers to date. I
am so behind on answering emails for free computer advice, and many potential
subscribers are still not entered, so please be patient with me. If you know
someone who has not received an answer to their email, ask them to resubmit the
question. I am getting overwhelmed, yet again. I would hate to stop my
free computer advice, but I'm not keeping up with the demand very well. I will
keep trying, though, and you keep being patient, OK? I'm doing well to get
this newsletter out, but I really enjoy writing to you all, and I hope that I
make a difference for you. The newsletter is my priority, so I will always
make time for
it! And now, on with the newest subject...
I have had many people asking me about the subject of unwanted email; it has
taken over the email airwaves, unfortunately. Here's some suggestions to wage
war on the bad guys that are emailing
you when you have not given your permission:
1. Just keep unsubscribing to all unwanted emails. The porn emails don't
always let you unsubscribe (remove or unsubscribe directions or links are
usually located at the bottom of the email), but keep trying;
don't worry that they'll get your email address when you must fill it in on an
unsubscribe webpage, because they already know your email address, and you must
enter it again to unsubscribe. It's just one of
those pains that we have to deal with. It's happening to almost everyone;
hopefully the internet will get cleaned up if enough people complain. You
have to have a thicker skin to use email. Don't take these things so
personally, just deal with them efficiently and then YOU have control, not them.
2. A copy of every spam should go to uce@ftc.gov
(with full headers so they can trace it). Just click forward and then address
it to uce@ftc.gov . Enter the uce address
in your address book right now, and call it the "junkcop". Forward email
to them every chance you get if you really want to battle these
people that don't value your privacy.
3. A good Spam tracking, analysis, and reporting service on the web:
SpamCop: http://spamcop.net/
Check this Website for more ideas on controlling unwanted email. They have many
services available, some free and some for a fee. You can actually type in a
website and see if it's on the blacklist. I'm glad to say, I'm not in there!
:)
4. More links with suggestions:
http://www.tomaszewski.net/Family/Intranet/StoppingSpam.shtml
http://www.nih.gov/news/NIH-Record/06_12_2001/story07.htm
5. Then, of course, another alternative, is just get your finger on the delete
button. Someone asked me if you can delete porn email without opening. Yes, in
Outlook Express, set your inbox to show only the
email and not a preview:
Click on View, layout, and uncheck "show preview pane",
click apply, and OK; your preview pane should be gone.
You will now always double click on an email to open it to
a separate window.
Now that the preview pane is gone, just click on the email to highlight it, and
click delete on your keyboard or in the toolbar at the top. You don't have to
preview any offensive material that way. Sometimes, it can be graphic in the
email itself. Porn emails are tricky, they come from a different source each
day, and this is no accident. Often times, when you click on the remove button,
you only go to a webpage that doesn't exist. So just highlight, and delete.
You can just delete unwanted mail without reading it in most email programs by
highlighting (one click) and click the delete button.
6. You can block sender on many unwanted emails when they come from the same
website all the time. Just highlight the email, and then click "message" in the
toolbar, and click block sender in the dropdown menu (this works in Outlook
Express 6.0, 5.5 or in 5.0 ). In other email programs, find reference to
preferences, options or something along those lines. I don't recommend the
Internet Filters like Cybersitter and Net Nanny, they can block email and
internet sites that you do want.
7. It is a great idea to complain to your ISP, and the organizations that I have
mentioned up above. Let them know you are very concerned. Believe me, you
don't have to go to a pornography site to start receiving porn email. Some
unscrupulous ISPs sell their client lists to all types of vendors, and
then some are just hacked into for their client lists. If your ISP knows this
is happening to you, they may be more careful or help you in some way. You
may even be alerting them to a hacking event they are not aware of.
8. A more drastic measure would be to acquire a brand new email address from
you Internet Service Provider. It can be quite a task to resubscribe to all
your wanted email and your chosen business sites (like for prescriptions), but
you can really clean up your email then, and no one will know you for
a while. It is likely to start over again if you start filling our surveys and
hardware/software registrations, and you will; but you will be wiser and if you
practice some of the methods that I have given you, (free email addresses for
registration and surveys) then it might not be so bad. Be sure you let your
friends know your new email address (like me :) )
9. Also, acquire a hotmail (www.hotmail.com
), yahoo (www.yahoo.com click on "check
email" to set up account), or www.email.com
account to type in when you are asked for your email address, and this will
steer the spammers in another direction, at least. Remember this the next time
you fill out a survey,
or a registration of a product, give your free email address, and you will help
the situation somewhat. Also, remember that these free accounts give you
limited space, so check you email often to clean it out, especially if I'm
sending you a newsletter to that address; it will get rejected if you don't have
the space available.
I would like to caution you all on one thing; when you unsubscribe to a
newsletter or other publication that you are no longer interested in, be sure
that you use the email address and/or name that you originally signed up with.
I'm particularly sensitive to this area because I have a newsletter, and when
someone unsubscribes with a different email address or name, I cannot remove
their name properly without the original address/name with which the person
originally subscribed. This can lead to hurt feelings and misunderstandings. I
personally take control of this situation of unwanted email with unsubscribe
notices, block sender, and my delete button, when I am tired of or do not need a
particular email publication.
And finally, People need to be more RELAXED on these issues and realize that you
are only a victim if you handle it that way. I wish all the offensive emails
would just stop, but it's not going to happen. So just as you trash junk mail
from your Snail mailbox, just do the same with your email box. Don't blow a
gasket every time someone sends you an unwanted email. Just exercise your mouse
finger or your keyboard finger with your undisputed "delete bill of rights".
Hope these suggestions help you to feel more in control, that's what we all need
in our lives, a little more control. Take control, learn to deal with it and
learn to "laugh it off". Life is too short to fret over these small things!
Next time, I want to tell you about a great website that I discovered on the net
called: ICOP International Council of Online Professionals.
http://www.i-cop.org
This one promises to help protect us from Online scammers, and I'm very
interested in that because I buy online all the time. I will be giving you an
overview of this organization (with jl Scott's permission) and a
few consumer tips of my own through my own experience on how to buy safely and
whom to trust.
Again, Happiest of St. Patty's Days to you all! Erin go Bragh!
Hope you enjoyed this newsletter. I'm trying to help, and if you have any
subject that you would like me to address, please email me @:
rocky1@rockyreport.com
I appreciate all of you. Remember that I will have all these monthly issues of
my newsletter available at my websites, along with other information:
http://www.rockyreport.com
And
http://www.internetguideandmore.com
Thanks for reading!
If you know of anyone who would like to receive this newsletter, tell them to
send a blank email to:
subscribe@rockyreport.com
If you would like to unsubscribe for any reason, be sure you send me the email
address that you subscribed under, or I won't be successful in removing your
name from the list. Just send a blank email to:
unsubscribe@rockyreport.com
TELL A FRIEND! THANKS!
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Merry
Christmas, Everybody!