What Constitutes ‘Spam’ Emails?

This article looks at what spam is, how spam email can cost businesses time and money.  An overview is also provided about how spam evolved and is generated.  It also provides a brief guide to phishing as well as providing information on how people can complain about spam emails that they receive.

Spam emails are emails that are essentially junk emails.  They have no real purpose, other than to amuse the spammers who send them and to cause frustration and annoyance to people who receive them.

It is estimated that worldwide around 100 billion ‘spam’ messages are sent everyday. This causes people to waste time by opening up spam, only to find that it is of no relevance to them and it can potentially slow down Internet traffic.  If we could get rid of 100 billion messages being sent everyday, it is likely that we would all find that the Internet was just that little bit quicker.  Dealing with spam email also costs organisations money, since a business has to pay people to deal with emails and many have to deal with spam emails, which costs that organisation money in terms of staff costs and lost productivity when dealing with the unwanted emails.

When the internet was originally launched, no one had any idea of the real potential for success.  Consequently there was little regulation in terms of what went on the internet, indeed, to a large extent, there is still very little regulation in most countries.

However, this was viewed as a golden opportunity by spammers, who realised that they could send out block emails, with details of products or just with meaningless messages.  Sometimes the spammers use software that simply takes a guess at email addresses, but sometimes the emails are generated as a result of a virus.  Some companies even sell email addresses and then spammers use these to spread their word.

Some spam is actually a front for people to try and obtain money through fraud.  Spam mails will arrive that are set up to look like they came from your bank or Paypal, so that you will reply with details of your accounts.  This is usually referred to as phishing.  All Internet users need to be aware that reputable banks and organisations such as Paypal will not ask for your account details over the internet, they already have them and there is no reason for you to provide them; so don’t!

Consider getting a spam blocker

Spam can be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK and many Internet Service Providers also encourage users to report spam to them.  Sadly most of the legislation refers to UK produced spam and most spam received in the UK is generated outside this jurisdiction, but if enough people keep complaining then eventually the issue may be resolved!

 

Getting Rid Of Spam Email

Many individuals receive spam emails without thinking too much about them.  However, spam is a serious business and more people need to work together to ensure that spam is drastically reduced and we can all be much safer online.We’ll examine ways to outwit spam senders and report themto reduce their activity.

Receiving junk mails may not see a big issue if they re about trivial things or making ridiculous product claims.And don’t we all have better things to do that worry about junk mail?This may be the case, but you can’t understand the issues with spam emails without knowing a little about spam.

To begin with, spam emails cost everyone money. People who receive spam email in their  new email addresses at work lose time due to dealing with rubbish emails.This has a cost implication for the business they work for.

In addition many people are distressed by spam.  Many people have been defrauded of money, due to spam emails being received from a spammer who purports to be their bank or building society.Popular spam stories include illness, or the need to transfer inherited money into a UK bank account.We can judge these people foolish with hindsight, but the scams weren’t well known at the time and it’s easy to be cautious and wise with hindsight.

So spam is not just an inconvenience at all.It needs to be stopped, as it both upsets some people and fills far too many inboxes.There’s a lot of software to cope with filtering out spam, but it’s hard to stop the spammers from getting your email in the first place.

One thing you can do to stop spam by yourself, is to use a another  email account when you are on a social networking site, such as Facebook. Never use @ but say instead at or AT - so you would be jane.smithAT (your service provider), not jane.smith@ followed by your service provider.

Since some email addresses are targeted by guesswork, you can reduce the chances of being found by using an underscore or a number.So jane_smith79_2@ service provider is far less liekly to be guessed by the software.

The Information Commissioner’s Office or even google and yahoo will recieve reports about spam should you choose to make one, but although they work hard to reduce or eliminate spam it’s an uphill struggle.

What Constitutes ‘Spam’ Emails?

This article looks at what spam is, how spam email can cost businesses time and money.  An overview is also provided about how spam evolved and is generated.  It also provides a brief guide to phishing as well as providing information on how people can complain about spam emails that they receive.

Spam emails are emails that are essentially junk emails.  They have no real purpose, other than to amuse the spammers who send them and to cause frustration and annoyance to people who receive them.

It is estimated that worldwide around 100 billion ‘spam’ messages are sent everyday. This causes people to waste time by opening up spam, only to find that it is of no relevance to them and it can potentially slow down Internet traffic.  If we could get rid of 100 billion messages being sent everyday, it is likely that we would all find that the Internet was just that little bit quicker.  Dealing with spam email also costs organisations money, since a business has to pay people to deal with emails and many have to deal with spam emails, which costs that organisation money in terms of staff costs and lost productivity when dealing with the unwanted emails.

When the internet was originally launched, no one had any idea of the real potential for success.  Consequently there was little regulation in terms of what went on the internet, indeed, to a large extent, there is still very little regulation in most countries.

However, this was viewed as a golden opportunity by spammers, who realised that they could send out block emails, with details of products or just with meaningless messages.  Sometimes the spammers use software that simply takes a guess at email addresses, but sometimes the emails are generated as a result of a virus.  Some companies even sell email addresses and then spammers use these to spread their word.

Some spam is actually a front for people to try and obtain money through fraud.  Spam mails will arrive that are set up to look like they came from your bank or Paypal, so that you will reply with details of your accounts.  This is usually referred to as phishing.  All Internet users need to be aware that reputable banks and organisations such as Paypal will not ask for your account details over the internet, they already have them and there is no reason for you to provide them; so don’t!

Consider getting a spam blocker

Spam can be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK and many Internet Service Providers also encourage users to report spam to them.  Sadly most of the legislation refers to UK produced spam and most spam received in the UK is generated outside this jurisdiction, but if enough people keep complaining then eventually the issue may be resolved!