S p a m & S a f e t y

S t o p p i n g a n d R e p o r t i n g S p a m

Using Filters

One of the less desirable aspects of using e-mail is spam -- unsolicited mail or just plain junk mail. How do you stop it from filling up your mailbox space? One great way to lessen the blow of spam is to establish filters.

You can configure your e-mail program to filter your e-mail as you receive it. E-mail filters will place unwanted e-mail into your Trash folder. In order to do this, you need to identify key words within the unwanted e-mail and then have your e-mail program filter all messages containing these criteria to the Trash. The next time you check your e-mail, your e-mail program will search each message looking for the words that you have specified and move the offending message to the Trash.

As a precaution, you may wish to look through your Trash for a few days to ensure that you are not filtering any wanted e-mail. Although this feature can be extremely useful, you need to be very careful in selecting specific words for your filters, as you may unknowingly filter out mail from your family, friends or business contacts.

Additional Steps to Avoid Spam

There are additional actions that you can take to help reduce the amount of spam you receive. One of the most important ways is to NOT reply to spam messages. Spam programs are intelligent. They are programmed with standard dictionary languages and even understand last names. Therefore, if you use your last name as a Member ID, such as user@websurf.net, these programs can easily find you. What these programs don't know is whether the address to which they are sending is valid. Once you reply to a spam, you have confirmed to the spammer that your e-mail address is real and is actively in use.

Secondly, you need to use discretion when giving out your e-mail address while visiting other sites or registering for on-line contest prizes and other promotions. You should use the same judgment that you use when providing your home address and consider how it may be used. Finally, you need to watch out for the "opt-in" check boxes. These boxes are usually placed next to questions that ask if you would like to receive information from the Web page owners or their partners. By leaving the box checked, you are agreeing to receive promotional e-mails from the promoter and possibly other parties.

Reporting Spam to Websurf

Websurf has a very strong policy against spam. Abuse of our Internet access and e-mail account services is considered a violation of our Acceptable Use Guidelines and Terms of Service. If you want to report spam or an offensive message, you need to extend the full header of the spam or offensive message and forward it to abuse@websurf.net.