Junk EMail Help

[roamingguy 300292]

On my civilian email, (live.com) I have been getting a ton of junk email

For example, from the following senders (cdi college, herbal magic, lasik, on line pharmacies, eharmony and so on) When I get them, I put the email address and domain in my blocked senders list (and you can get that without opening up the email)...you'd think that would work, well no

They then send more junk email, but just change their domain name so it isn't blocked

Does anyone know how to stop these emails. You would think once flagged as junk to begin with, and email and domain in blocked senders list, it would stop. Can't tell you how many emails from CDI College for example I've got blocked

And no, never contacted these companies to begin with, so how they got my email address I don't know

Thanks

RG

[Rassilon 982]

For Canadian companies, contact them and tell them not to do it. When they do it again, go to the government's website and drill down to the privacy commissioner's website. Use the PIPEDA law to hurt them. (http://www.priv.gc.ca/information/02_05_d_08_e.asp)

 

You can get software that uses pre-established spam filters and can learn more for you personally as you train it. Spam Assassin is one example.

[roamingguy 300292]

Thanks for that tip, next junk mail I'll respond with that link

RG

[backrubman 64800]

If it's from a company or organisation you had anything to do with and give them your email address then you can often opt out of receiving further emails. However, in the case of opting out of real spam, once they receive your request to cease and desist it just fortifies that someone out there at that address (yours) is reading the email so the spammers will treat that as an invitation to send you more and more. Even though the level of spam mail is said to be down to 50% of what it once was, that's still a lot of spam.

 

Of course trying to set up a filter or block real junk mail, well, that's a loosing battle. One misconception a lot of normal, rational and highly intelligent (but non-techie) people tend "believe" is that email has to come from somewhere legitimate but the truth is that "From:" header is no different than the "Subject:" header, it's actually just a comment. Actually EVERYTHING you see in an email is a "comment" and may have no basis in reality. The From: and To: lines have nothing to do with the routing of how the email actually gets delivered - an entirely different dialogue that you never see handles that. I suppose a good analogy is a piece of real letter mail. I can write you a letter and drop it in the mail. The post office doesn't verify that the return address on the envelope is real (or that there even is one).

 

I actually don't get spam anymore, thanks to Gmail. Hotmail is pretty good also but they actually reject messages before they get to you and sometimes when you cast such a wide net you catch something you didn't want to so I prefer the Gmail philosophy of just put it in the spam folder and automatically delete it after 30 days.

 

This is an interesting read: Who has Better Spam Protection? Yahoo, Gmail & Hotmail Tested

[Cowboy kenny 50799]

I feel your pain I was there years ago with both a hotmail and yahoo account that saw more spam than actual mail on a daily basis.

 

live.com is an extension of hotmail, and to be frank Hotmail sux! Gmail is solid, sure every now and then one might sneak past but once I flag it I never see it again. I use Gmail for my personal account, business account and the contact for the diary, where the email is displayed in full and little ( i mean maybe 2 a month) to no spam arrives on that account. It may seem like a huge task but it's worth the effort and you can forward certain emails from your hotmail acct to the gmail acct while leaving the spam behind.

[Boomer 33202]

Being online has a certain amount of risks. It's not unlike passwords, where I maintain various levels of security. I might use a fairly generic password for simple less important accounts and at the end of the spectrum strong dedicated ones for something like a bank account.

 

With email I use a similar strategy by maintaining a number of email accounts. Some may be discard able as I use then for a broad range of uses and expect to have some spam build up. There are others that I use in my personal life which have a far narrower distribution. I use a Yahoo account anything to do this industry. I have one hotmail account that I've had for the best part of 7-8 years where I've had relatively little spam because I've limited it to fairly wide but personal use, and last but not least a Gmail account which is totally spam free, but I use only with a trusted mailing list.

 

There are many ways to attack the problem, filtering, using the unsubscribe tool, but at the end of the day I think you can't stop it all, so having a few throw away accounts where the risk is highest makes sense.

[rosseyerie 161]

But I've always found hotmail's UI way more friendlier than Gmail's...