|
Managing Your Email Better
|
Tips and Tricks to Managing your Email Better.
Sending Email & Helping Spammers
It's happened to all of us... you get that email and look at it and realize that the person who sent it to you put your email address, and about 50 others, all in the "TO" or "CC" field. Now, everyone that the email went to has your email address too.
No one who innocently sends or forwards jokes and emails to groups or friends actually, willingly and consciously, tries to help spammers. But by openly CC'ing everyone the email, you are. If you want to send mass email or forward jokes, comics, stories and such to your friends.
That's OK. Go for it.
BUT
When you do, please do them and all of the Internet a favor and BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) the people you want to send it to. The BCC function hides the entire list of recipients from everyone else. This way you do not end up with a list of email address in the email itself that will eventually end up in a spammers computer and be used against you.
The BCC field is available to all email programs. It may not be currently visible with your program so you may need to turn it on or make it visible. But using "BCC" instead of "CC" can save a lot of headaches for a lot of people.
On that Note, if you receive an email from someone and are about to forward it off to someone else or a group of people, take a minute and look at the email. If it contains a list of others who have received the email before you, then do them a favor and remove all of their email addresses from within the body of the email before you send it.
Managing Your Email :
A very powerful yet simple tool for combating SPAM is simply to set up multiple email accounts. It may take a
little effort at first, but we know it works. If you have your own website and manage your own email accounts this may be really powerful and easy for you. If you are a GetMySiteOnline.com customer not only do you manager your own email accounts, but also note that ALL levels of Hosting Service at GetMySiteOnline.com come with an option to activate a "Catch All" email account. With a "Catch All" account, you can create any name and number of bogus email addresses at your domain and the "Catch All" email account will... well.. "Catch All" email sent to them and stick all the email into one main email account. (its really slick !)
Here is how it works.
| 1) |
Create a new Primary, SECRET email address.
Do NOT give the address out to anyone.
Do NOT List the address on any web pages.
Do NOT Send email directly from the account (yet)
|
|
| 2) |
ONLY give out your Primary email address to people and organizations you TRUST. This TRUST includes RESTRICTING those friends that send you all those jokes and forwards, and they CC you and 50 other people all at the same time. Now 50 others have your email address as well. Can you trust all 50 of them ? Most likely some of them will forward your email address off to another 50 people. Once something gets posted on the internet, it NEVER goes away. Set strict guidelines with friends on the use of your Primary email address. If you want to receive jokes and forwards like this, then set up a separate account where you don't mind getting them (and junk mail) at.
|
|
| 3) |
Any time you are signing up for some service, creating a new online account, buying something online, Etc... before you do, Create a NEW Temporary email account Specifically for that new contact. If you have a "Catch All" account, you do not need to actually create a new email account. Remember, the "Catch All" is like automatically setting up a new account just by giving out a unique email address.
|
|
| 4) |
Be Specific with the new Email Address. For Instance (assuming your domain name is "www.abc.com") if your name is Sam and you are signing up to buy books on eBay from "Sally's Books", create an email address called "Sam4SallysBooksOnEbay@abc.com."
Many Email Addresses Can have up to 32 Characters before the @ Sign. (BTW, this is JUST an example. We don't know if "Sally's books" actually exists or not. So, If you are from Sally's Books, calm down, let us know and we will gladly change the reference.)
|
|
| 5) |
For a time, only use that Temporary email address (or the "Catch All" account) to communicate with "Sally's books." If you get ANY junk mail that comes to the "Sam4SallysBooksOnEbay@abc.com" temporary address, then you have to question how the spammer got it so fast if Sally's Books is the only one that it was ever given to.
|
|
| 6) |
Once you can confirm "Sally's Books" is using your information with care, "upgrade" them to your Primary email account if you want.
|
Email accounts are easy to create and destroy them as you need. When one Temporary starts filling up with junk mail, you simply delete it or stop using it. Your Primary account can stay safe for a long time. I, The webmaster of this site, create a NEW email account for every new contact I establish. Every Credit Card Company, Bank, Utility Company, Subscriptions, Family Member, Friends... I mean EVERY contact gets their own Email Address (used with a "Catch All"). If I get any junk mail on one of those accounts, I know where it came from as only 1 person was given each NEW account. I Instantly know who to trust - or who NOT to trust.
|
|
Fight Back Against SPAM
|
