SPAM, what is it? Why does it happen? How do I stop it?

That's a question that I'm sure you're all asking yourselves. Infact, a lot of people don't even know what it is. But it can be stopped. One way or another. To start off the commentary, we'll take a look at spambots, that spider web sites and retrieve or in their words, "harvest" webmasters` addresses. The spider will look for "Mailtoerson@domain.com" links and steal the email addresses to put into large databases or even sell the email database to large dot-com companies.

What is SPAM? SPAM is unauthorized "junk mail" sent to your e-mail address. Around 75% of SPAM sent to your e-mail, you have actually signed up for [The Globe and Mail]. Some SPAM includes messages that could say "Get over $10,000 for sending this e-mail to all your friends" or "If you follow these steps, you can rake in the cash!".

Here are the steps to stop the SPAM in your e-mail

(1) Never respond to the e-mail saying "GET ME OFF YOUR $#^(*&$# LIST!", this will never work. By doing this, you tell the spammers that your e-mail address is active, which then becomes more valuable to the spammers.

(2) Contact The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE) at www.cauce.org <- This can be a lot more effective than contacting the sender of your e-mail address.

(3) Simply BLOCK the sender(s) in your e-mail program. To do this in Outlook Express, click on the message in your inbox and Click "Message: Block Sender", this is somewhat effective, in the fact that you don't have to look at the SPAM.

(4) The last step, at a last resort, is contacting your Internet service provider. Call your ISP and tell that what steps you have taken against the SPAM, and it still won't stop, your ISP should be able to block the sender from your e-mail server.

Stopping E-mail SPAM is one of the hardest things to do, because they simply won't stop (even after you have used their form to stop it).

If you run a web site, where CGI's are allowed, you can check out:
www.cgi-resources.com - This web site has a list of "SPAM Scripts" that will help you fight back against these robots that collect your e-mail address.