April 2007

Spam Management

It would be nicer for everyone if spammers just closed up shop and went out of business. But since spammers don’t seem to be going away, and in fact are getting bolder in their methods to cultivate addresses and generate massive amounts of unwanted e-mails, we all have to figure out ways to live with them and keep their effects to a minimum.

How are spammers finding your address in the first place? Spammers have special software called “spambots” that crawl the web and pluck out e-mail addresses that are displayed on web pages. This means that when you so innocently display your e-mail address in the hopes of providing an easy way for customers to contact you, you’ve made it easy for spammers to contact you, as well.

Spammers also get lists of valid, registered domain names, which are just a matter of accessing public records. Once armed with these lists, it’s very easy to generate e-mails with any name they can think of, such as “webmaster@...”, “bob@...” or “sue@...”. Chances are that your e-mail address will end up on some of these lists, which means you’ll get the spam in your inbox; just what the spammers are hoping for.

One other sinister thing spammers do is monitor public forums or newsgroup postings, and snag all the addresses they can that way. They’re an unsavory bunch, that’s for sure!

Now that you know some of the ways spammers gather addresses, let’s talk abut ways to stop them from annoying you once they get your address.

1. Remove all e-mail addresses in the form “person@domain.com” from your website.
There are a couple of ways you can do this while still allowing people to see your address and contact you. You might display the e-mail address this way, which breaks up the pattern that spambots are searching for: “person [at] domain [dot] com”. While that generally solves the problem, it can be confusing to people who have never encountered this before and may be a source of frustration if anyone actually tried to send an e-mail to you using this “hidden” format. Believe me, there are some web novices out there who will not know what to do with this format and may try to enter the address like that, brackets and all!

MightyMerchant recommends using an online form that customers can fill out and which will direct the e-mail to you without actually displaying your address for all the world’s spambots to see. You probably already have this feature on your website, but if not, we can update your website to accommodate this for a one-time cost of $40.

2. Remove the default maildrop on your website.
Until recently, MightyMerchant’s typical practice was to set up a default mailbox for our customers, with all e-mail addresses getting forwarded to this "maildrop". For instance, you could have many addresses that you would typically need for your business, such as addresses to ‘sales,’ ‘info’ or ‘orders’ and they would all go into this mailbox. We don’t do this anymore, because as we mentioned at the beginning of this article, spammers find a valid domain name and make up all kinds of names to send e-mails to, and these general addresses are the first ones they think of.

MightyMerchant can update your website for you at no cost, to remove this risk that spammers will take advantage of the maildrop.

3. Consider retiring your current e-mail and slowly transitioning to a new one.
There’s a good chance that you registered your domain using your e-mail address for contact information. This means spammers have it and always will. Most domain registrars now let you register your domain without posting your e-mail address, so removing your e-mail address from your public domain registration is advisable. If we registered your domain name, your e-mail was not used. You could consider transitioning to a new address, but if your name is common there’s a very good chance that spammers will find it simply by chance.

We realize this isn’t the easiest suggestion to implement; if you’ve had your address for a while then it may be printed on business cards or other materials that would cost money to replace. But we urge you to consider this step if your current e-mail address is already plagued with spam. We have developed an effective system of retiring an old e-mail address that will still allow important contacts and customers to be alerted of your e-mail address change. Please ask us how this systems works.

4. Use Spam Filtering
No matter what you do, chances are that spammers will find you, but strong spam filtering software can go a long way toward keeping spam out of your inbox.

There are three main categories of spam filters:

• Message Filtering programs are purchased as add-ons to the e-mail software on your computer. One problem is that the spam still goes onto your computer, so if you check your mail from more than one location, you will not be able to take advantage of the features unless the software is set up on each computer that you use. Some of the popular programs are http://spaminspector.com, http://spamwasher.com, or http://www.spambully.com.
• “Challenge and response” systems send an automated reply to any e-mail that requires the sender to verify who they are. If they respond, chances are good that they are valid, and you can then allow these addresses into your approved list. People using any one e-mail address only have to respond one time. This approach really works, but also can give people an opportunity to decline to follow through. You may risk losing customers who don’t want to jump through that hoop, minor hoop though it may be. In our personal experience, most people are understanding about the need to eliminate spam and will take the extra few seconds to reply. It’s still a risk though, that some people won’t. A popular challenge-response program is http://choicemail.com.
• Server-Based Spam Filtering stops spam before it gets to your own computer. This works very well, however, it is possible to have non-spam e-mails end up being filtered out, so it pays to check the spam filter regularly.

Four more important tips:

• When you get a spam message, never click the button at the bottom that prompts you to unsubscribe. Doing so will only notify the spammers that they have found a "live" address and will ensure a larger volume of spam coming your way. Click to “report as spam” rather than just “delete,” because each reported spam message does help to make your e-mail spam filtering a bit stronger.
• When ordering anything online, pay close attention to the boxes that are checked or unchecked as you complete the ordering process. Some sites automatically check boxes that sign you up for newsletters or other “special offers” and are hoping you won’t notice.
• When using your personal e-mail address to do anything online, consider having a secondary address with one of the many free e-mail providers, so if spammers do get it, the spam goes to an address you aren’t too concerned about.
• Don’t buy from any company that doesn’t have a privacy disclaimer saying that they won’t sell your e-mail address. If they don’t say they won’t, that means they will.

We hope these tips help! If you have any questions about spam management or how MightyMerchant can help, please contact us.