Frequently Asked Questions
General - Dial-Up - Email - Billing - Spam
In the past we did not have to worry about unsolicited or unwanted solicited email commonly know as spam today. Below are just a few facts that will help you with some the of spam issues and solutions today:
| Why do I get Junk Mail? How do I stop it? |
| How do they get my email address? |
| How do I get my email off on the these list? |
| Can your email server help? |
| Why do I get Junk Mail? How do I stop it? |
You have probably seen an increase
in the amount of "junk mail" which shows up in your email box, or on
your favorite newsgroup. The activities of a small number of people are
becoming a bigger problem for the Internet. We have taken a number of steps to reduce the amount of junk mail or Spam that crosses our network. These include security restrictions and heavy fines for users choosing to abuse our service with Spam. There are some steps you can take to help reduce the amount of junk mail reaching your inbox. You can configure your email program to filter your email as you receive it. email filters will place unwanted email into your Trash folder. In order to do this, you need to identify key words within the unwanted email and then have your email program filter all messages containing these criteria to the Trash. The next time you check your email, your email program will search each message looking for the words that you have specified and move the offending message to the Trash. 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. For more information on junk mail and how to stop it, visit http://spam.abuse.net/. |
| How do they get my email address? | There are many ways
that your email address gets used and disbursed to other spammers. Here
are a list of some of the ways your email is abused: Acceptance of free product offers on the internet or postal system. Purchased from other mailing list Collections form news servers Collections from you website Collections from discussion boards Collections from To and CC fields in emails 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 in your email address 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 email address is real and is actively in use. |
| How do I get my email off on the these list? | This is the $1,000 question. There are 10s of thousands of companies that make available email list. Some cost money and some are free. If you were to get your email off of one list, there are 10,000+ more you would have to contact, if you could find contact information on the company. |
| Can your email server help? | Yes, we currently use many methods of removing email before it gets to you computer. We don't get them all, but we try to low the total. |
The above FAQ and tips will not stop SPAM completely, but they will help slow it down for you.