Why do I get spam?
Dear Dr. J,
I have recently started getting a lot of unwanted email from people I have never conversed with. Most of it is for 1/2 off Viagra which would help me a lot as I am on a fixed budget. However, my 3 year old grandson informed me that this is called 'spam' and that any deals in it are usually not true. Is he correct? And if so how can I stop reciving this mail.
--Spammed In Seattle
Dear Spammed,
You grandson is very correct, the messeges you are getting are spam. They usuaully come from people who have bought your email address from some company you signed up with. Anytime you sign up for a newsletter and there is a checkbox for "third party" emails make sure it is unchecked. All that free porn you sign up for.....stop doing that. The next way spammers get your email is from harvesting. This has nothing to do with wheat or corn. It's basically spammers scanning through webpages and forums looking for anything like:
<something>@<something>.<something>
You can do two things to prevent this. One is not post your email address anywhere and two is to throw odd charactors in it. The last one is reletivly simple. If your address is
"johnsmith@hotmail.com"
then just put it up on the internet at
"johnsmith@nospam.hotmail.com"
That way when your address gets harvested it goes to some not existant address and not your real one. If someone wants to send you a email just have them remove the "nospam" part and the email goes right to you. Now a common mistake is adding a not so obvious addition to your email address. For example.
"johndumbasssmith@hotmail.com"
While this may seem clear to you some people might not get it that "dumbass" is the addition and not your middle name. Another Important thing to remember is that anything that says "Unsubscribe" really just confirms that your email is active and adds you to more lists. This is a bad thing.
So in short (pun intended) you probably won't be getting cheaper Viagra, sorry.
-Dr. J