The Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Australia (CAUBE.AU) and the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) have articles on “How to Avoid Being Spammed.”
The articles deal with topics like:
1. Where do spammers get my address?
2. What should I do to avoid spam?
3. I’m already on the spammer’s list. What can I do to stop it?
Although it’s next to impossible not to be spammed, we can at least try to minimize the risks of being spammed by observing the following rules:
1. Do not put your email address on a web page, especially in “mailto:” links. While there are some services available that claim to be able to generate HTML that creates mailto links that spammers cannot collect addresses from, the effectiveness of these techniques is highly questionable, and assumes that spammers and the people who write their software have brains smaller than that of a turnip. While it is attractive to believe that this is true, it is most likely not.
2. Avoid IRC, or if possible use a false user name while connecting to IRC. Note that this may be a violation of the IRC server administrator’s policy, so check this before you connect using a false user name.
3. Instant messaging services usually have several privacy settings, some of which may make it harder for spammers to find you – check with the documentation for your instant messaging software to see what privacy options are available.
4. If you participate in web based discussion groups, make sure you use a false email address.
5. If you participate in a mailing list, there may be nothing you can do to stop a spammer from getting your email address from that list. Spammers can sign up to mailing lists just as easily as you can, and if they do, they can get your address from any message you send to the list. You cannot use a false return address in email, because many things simply won’t work – for example, if you mistype the recipients address, you will never know your message didn’t make it. The only real options here are to not participate at all, or to accept the fact that you may be spammed as a result.
For more tips on how to avoid being spammed, visit the CAUBE.AU at http://www.caube.org.au/avoid.htm or http://cauce.org/archives/51-Is-there-any-way-to-make-them-stop.html
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