Don't get me wrong - I am as sick of receiving this garbage in my mailbox every day as everyone else. I don't like to receive unsolicited commercial email. I can't stop it however, and I don't think anyone can. I don't like receiving ads for porn sites, for legal representation, viagra, cellular phones, printer cartridges or anything else that winds up uninvited in my email.

I don't have a surefire solution to this problem, but do know that it is wrong to persecute innocent on outside chance of getting a spammer, who will simply spring up someplace else.

The anti-spam fanatics who pursue tactics like this are more of a problem than spammers they are trying to get rid of. While I can take steps to eliminate spam I receive, I can't prevent fanatics from making false accusations, which could be detrimental to my reputation and business.

Face it - number of spams received from misdirected individuals is miniscule in comparison with those received from untouchable pros. Rather than persecuting legitimate people who are not guilty, why not take some steps to provide a workable solution.

Spam is theft, Spammers are thieves, and should be treated as such. They are stealing your available resources, not to mention your time to sort through it. Legislative solutions have become mired, and remove lists don't work. Filtering email is only a partial solution, as much spam is an HTML document that you can't eliminate on a keyword in body of note, and since they use a different address every time it is sent, it is virtually impossible to block.

In my judgement, most effective way to keep unsolicited mail from getting in your email box, is to enact legislation that requires letters "ADV" to precede subject of unsolicited email. That would identify it as an ad, and allow you option to easily filter email to where you wish.

Something must be done, and a reasonable first step would be to send a copy of this article to your elected representatives, and demand action on their part.

The least effective way is to make complaints to ISP's found in an email, as majority of time, you won't be getting real offenders. You could however, wind up hurting someone who is not guilty.

Marketers have lost sites getting 1,000 or more visitors a day, because their host reacted without warning.

5. Set up email accounts and links to be used in resource boxes of your articles.

Some spam software will go after every link in a newsletter. It's better to lose a throwaway account than have your main accounts shut down.

6. Set up email accounts and web pages to use in ezine ads.

7. Keep back up copies of your follow up auto responder messages.

8. Never send email to someone you don't know.

Avoid those cd's offering thousands of safe addresses. They aren't safe.

You can take these simple steps and protect you business, or you can protest your innocence while your scrambling to salvage your business.

Don't be a victim. Take bull by horns and protect your business.

No on will do it for you.

Wishing You Success, John Colanzi http://www.internet-profits4u.com