I recently decided to migrate from Yahoo mail, which I have used for nearly 10 years. I decided to take advantage of the fact that my hosting provider, Media Temple, provides a nice Webmail interface, as well as use Mail via IMAP. The main motivation was the fact that Spam has become such a huge part of my life on Yahoo. I’ll give Yahoo credit for doing an admirable job at keeping Spam at bay. I do think they have a very good filter. But it just wasn’t enough to stop the accumulated 10 years of Spam lists.Â
So in setting up my new email, I wanted to avoid Spam as much as possible early on. I put some thought into this and came up with a plan.
1.   Select one email address as my primary personal email. This account is what will go to my Blackberry and Mail.
2.   I then added an alias email address that goes along with my primary email. All email to that address also goes to my main account. This email address is what I use for sites I trust, like Amazon, eBay, Paypal, Blockbuster, my bank, etc†¦
3.   I then added another account that does not go to my Mail or Blackberry. This is just accessible via Webmail. I use this account for sites that may or may not be trust worthy. But since they don’t come directly through to my email client or phone, I don’t have to worry too much about it.
4.   I then added 4 aliases to the second account. These I use with more high risk sites. Site that I think may sell my email.
So now when I get email from a close friend who knows my real email address, I can see it instantly. When I get an email from a trusted merchant, even though they don’t have my primary email, I still see it right away.  But if I start getting Spam from one of them, I can always change up the email.
When I get email from a non-trusted merchant, it simply goes to a mailbox that doesn’t interfere with my daily life. I can check that email address if I feel the need to look through their ads. And obviously I can kill any of the aliases with a couple of clicks and end any Spam issues from them in an instant.
Train your friends
You have to educate your friends on email etiquette. Ask them to please not include you on their massive mailings where they copy everyone. People sometimes auto add peole to their address book, and that ends up becoming used for Spam. Also, ask them to not enter your email address into sites. People often like to send me articles through the “Send this to a friend†link on a site. These sites may very well be selling these collected emails, or possible just adding them to their own mailings.
Subscribing to newsletters
Newsletter is very Web 1.0. If you find a site that updates information you’re interested in, see if they have an RSS feed and just add that to your reader. Then if they ever do Spam you, just remove them.
If they don’t offer an RSS, create an alias for them ([email protected]). Then you can get the newsletter, but also see if they sell your email address. If they abuse it, you can just kill the alias.
Public address
Obviously you may want to allow people who do not know you to contact you, especially if you have a Website. There is a couple ways to handle this without putting your inbox in peril. First, do not just post your email address on your site in HTML. Spam bots will pick this up very quickly, and the nightmare begins. In my opinion, there are two options to allow the public to contact you through your website.
First, make a contact form for your site. You will want to make sure that the submit button is in JavaScript, or add one of those nifty boxes that ask them to type the letters in the box. I prefer the JavaScript method, because I know bots can’t read this, and anyone who wants to email me from my website that doesn’t have JavaScript on their browser is weird anyway.
The second alternative is to create an open posting board that allows people to post private comments directly to you. This is a great way to allow open communication through friends, and also get messages without them going to your email.
When it happens
So I think I have a good plan to avoid Spam for a while, but I know eventually I’m going to start seeing those familiar Viagra ads. That’s when I’ll have to move to a Spam protection software.
My plan for this, which is actually very low cost, Gmail. Google has created one of the best Spam filers out there for their email system. And since it’s free for right now, you can have a great Web interface, as well as Spam protection even when you pass their through POP 3.
Some Do’s and Don’t
Do turn off HTML email by default if you can. This can send out a pixel to Spammers, letting them know the email was successfully opened.
Do Not place your email address in public websites, including your own and posting boards.
Do Not “Bounce†Spam emails. These usually just bounce to someone innocent guy’s email, and then bounces right back to you, creating twice the amount of Spam as you had.
Do Not click to on links to “unsubscribe†from the email list, unless you know and trust the source. This is another way for Spammers to verify the email is good.
All this should work well for my personal email, but not my business email, which has been around even longer than my Yahoo mail account. So I have been putting some thought into how the ultimate email Spam filter would work. But that’s another posting. Good luck on fighting Spam. If you have more suggestions, leave comments below.
[tags]spam, email, yahoo, google, gmail[tags]
[…] A couple weeks ago, I wrote two articles on dealing with Spam. One article was about my new approach to heading off Spam before it starts with a new email address. The other article was a wish list for “The Ultimate Spam Blocker”. […]