Spam Defined

Spam takes many forms, but in summary it is unsolicited (unwanted) emails sent out via mass mailing schemes. Spam is basically the electronic form of the multitude of advertisements you get in the Sunday newspaper. Spam takes all shapes and forms and can be anything from the simple to the outrageous, to the subtle to the downright obnoxious. The problem with catching Spam is that anyone with the proper program and a mailing list can send out Spam, and Spammers are becoming more and more knowledgeable and adept at finding ways around the many anti-Spam methods ISP's such as Pacific Online use.

There are excellent organizations and companies on the Internet who highly oppose Spam. One popular one is http://orbz.org, which helps many ISP's filter and prevent Spam. These organizations also stop additional Spam using lists commonly known as "black-lists". Blacklists are lists that contain ISP's and organizations that actively send Spam and other unsolicited emails. Pacific Online uses orbz to filter out Spammers and other email abuse - this does significantly decrease the amount of Spam. Please bear in mind that we are trying our best to prevent Spam for our customers, as it not only effects you but also effects our servers and our business email addresses, as well as our own personal email addresses.

Surely you have gotten at least some Spam in the past; some users receive more Spam then others, some do not receive hardly any at all. You are probably reading this article thinking "When are they going to tell me how to get rid of Spam completely!?" The unfortunate thing is there really is not an easy, cure-all method for stopping the Spam. However, we can give you a few tips and hints on how to reduce it and perhaps even stop Spam from reaching your email box.

The first and most important tip on stopping Spam; the one point, as technicians we cannot stress enough, is to not give out your email address to anyone you do not specifically know and trust. By know and trust we mean do not give your email address out to any site on the Internet or to any person or company. Give your email out to friends, family, etc but only to those who will guard your email address, as you would guard it. Sure, it sounds drastic and perhaps even a bit selfish, but from the rate of Spam coming into our servers and the ease of picking up a virus from an email, it is critical that you guard against who gets your email address. Think of your email address as your own home address. You would not give your home address to any stranger on the street, nor would you display your home address on television or other mass media without a good reason for doing so. Just as easily as someone with a crowbar and the knowledge of your home address can break into your house, a person with your email address can also do a variety of bad things such as send you unwarranted Spam & viruses. We do not mean to scare you with this article; we simply mean to strike home the point of the importance of guarding your email address.

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