It's happened to most of us one time or another: you log into your email one day and have fifty or more emails announcing that you've won a "free*" laptop or that you can "make $10,000 working from home!" Unfortunately, there is no established, fool-proof method to completely stop these unwanted emails, but there are some steps you can take to reduce the amount of spam you receive:
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Beware that entering your name/address online may increase the amount of email you receive.
It's the same phenomenon as when you order something from a printed catalog: Once you order from one company, they'll share your address with other companies who will send you their catalogs too. -
Look for subscribe checkboxes.
When entering your e-mail account into a form online, look for checkboxes that you can select/deselect to subscribe to a mailing list or share your information with the company's partners and advertisers. -
Know when to unsubscribe and when to just delete.
Some unwanted e-mail will include an unsubscribe option at the bottom of the e-mail. Check things out before you click on it.- Visit the company's website. Does it feel and look legitimate?
- Do they list a Privacy Policy and contact information?
If the answers are yes, it's probably safe to use the unsubscribe option. If you're uncertain, don't click -- some sites will interpret your unsubscribe request as confirmation that your email address is legitimate and then sell it to other places. Instead, monitor the emails to look for a pattern and set up an email filter to file or delete those emails.
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Don't fall into the trap of email scams.
Be aware of common email scams. If you are not sure, consider looking the email up on Snopes.com. -
Avoid listing your email address on web pages.
Whether it's a personal site or departmental site, avoid listing your email address with the basic, HTML "mailto" command. To find alternatives, do a search on "encrypting email addresses on web pages" and/or view this site https://websitehelpers.com/spam/. -
Configure your email client's spam filter.
Many email clients provide a spam filter which will block suspicious emails from your inbox and store them into another folder to be automatically deleted after a certain amount of time. You can mark messages from your inbox as spam and the client will filter out all similar future messages. It's a good idea to periodically monitor your spam folder and make sure nothing legitimate got moved in, but if it's something you didn't expect or from a sender you don't know, it's probably best to delete it.
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