UNHCE Information Technology & Distance Education Blog

Networks worldwide are becoming increasingly clogged by e-mail pitches for pornography, money-making schemes, medicines and a multitude of other products. This unsolicited bulk advertising e-mail is known as Spam. Junk e-mail is currently estimated to be nearly 40% of all e-mail traffic on the Internet and some experts believe the reality is even higher. The associated cost to corporations and employers is astronomical. If an employee uses 10 minutes a day to filter through, delete, and otherwise try to address the junk, at year's end they will have used a full work week in dealing with Spam. This doesn't even address the costs of the technological resources that are used and abused during the process.

Not all of that junk clogging up our mailboxes is really Spam. An innocent visit to a legitimate business on the Internet can result in your address being shared with a number of businesses that pool or sell their e-mail address contact lists. If you are making a purchase on-line, carefully examine the screens and be sure to uncheck any boxes that refer to being added to any kind of list or advertising. Do not participate in giveaways or surveys that they may be offering. Should you end up getting multiple e-mails from a legitimate business (such as Sears.com) this may be the reason. In this case, answering the link to be removed from the e-mail list will most likely work, but, you must exercise caution and use good judgment. If there is any doubt in your mind, do not respond to the e-mail.

True Spam is very difficult to fight. The persons responsible have become very efficient at circumventing tools meant to keep them in check. Many states are enacting laws to combat unsolicited e-mail and software firms are working diligently to create programs that can identify rapidly changing Spam techniques. UNH Cooperative Extension subscribes to some of the best anti-spam tools available and we will continue to evaluate new tools as they become available. Unfortunately, until these new systems are perfected, their implementation simply runs too much risk of blocking legitimate e-mail. The biggest offenders for allowing these bulk e-mailers to exist are the huge ISPs like Excite.com. Since they make their money by advertising, there are many conflicting interests involved. They certainly aren't going to implement anything that will cut into profits unless they are forced. Hopefully, some of the new legislation that is being passed will curb their appetite for profit.

In the meantime, one thing that you can do is to set up a filter in Eudora to help you automatically weed some of the junk mail from your Inbox. The tip of the month in this newsletter will give you some basic instructions for implementing Eudora filters.