Every year we seem to have more frustrating spam sent to our Internet e-mail inboxes. Junk e-mail, or unsolicited e-mail, is known as spam to the Internet community. It has traditionally been sent as a series of single bulk message to tens of thousands of victims. In a recent barrage, one spammer set up a mailing list and subscribed a list of innocent victims. The list was then seeded with commercial promotions including less than desirable adult websites. Of course the very next thing that happened was that inexperienced recipients on the list hit the reply button on their e-mail program. Moments later, their angry complaint along with a copy of the original message, were then relayed to all the list members.

Within a few hours some mailboxes had received nearly a hundred messages originating from the list, most of which were angry replies from frustrated recipients who didn't understand that their actions were only contributing to the traffic congestion. Even more significant than the obvious annoyance that this tactic produced, was the fact that all those responding effectively validated their e-mail addresses as real and regularly read.

For the benefit of those who are fighting the rising tide of junk email, here are few good sense rules that will help you with spam:

1) If the e-mail says, "Scroll to bottom to unsubscribe...," beware of a double-edged sword. First, the spammer almost forces you to skim the junk e-mail. Secondly, the unsubscribe option, or the option to opt out of any e-mail list is almost certainly just another way to verify that your email address is valid and that someone actually reads the messages sent there. If you want to check this out, create a new free e-mail address on Yahoo mail or Hotmail and then forward an existing spam with an unsubscribe option to the new address. From that new e-mail address, unsubscribe and watch the flood of junk e-mail that comes forth. If a spammer isn't using a fictitious reply address, then it's kept to confirm that you're a valid target for more junk e-mail.

2) Avoid the rebuttal temptation. The quickest, most gratifying feeling is to hit the reply button on your e-mail program and give them your two cents worth. Perhaps you want to do that fifty times in frustration. Again, more often than not the spammer is using a fictitious reply address. If not, the address you are replying to will just confirm that e-mail address is a live one.

3) This last item is more common sense than anything else. Never buy from or even visit the sites promoted by spam. The chances are that anyone who feels it necessary to resort to breaching netiquette, or the good conduct rules of the Internet, will not be someone you want to do business with. Buying any product or service from such sources will only encourage them to send more junk e-mail. Think of the junk faxes you may have received in the past. Would you buy anything from them and reward that?

Most of the time, we have our e-mail address "out there" in the public eye. It's on our business card. If we have a home page or two, we're listed on the bottom as the source for more information. Some suggestions to avoid spammers trolling for e-mail addresses online is to list your e-mail with the @ in brackets or parentheses such as webmaster[at]baywalk.com or webmaster(at)baywalk.com. I've found that you cannot avoid having at least one e-mail address in the public, so I strongly recommending having two. One is your public business e-mail address, and the other is for personal e-mail communications from friends and family.