Yourself! To Win The War Against Spam!

Unfortunately, fighting SPAM has become an ever increasing challenge in every day online life! :( Even with passage of CAN-SPAM legislation which took effect in United States in January of 2004 (see http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html ), ,this does not seem to have diminished volume of *spam* at all (as you may also see in article "CAN-SPAM legislation proving useless against spam" at: http://www.newstarget.com/001412.html ) and appears to have simply "pushed spammers offshore" :( I, personally, used to receive over 200 spam messages just overnight while I slept in just one of my email boxes! :( However, by helping you Arm Yourself with proper tools and techniques, in this article, we hope to help you Win War against SPAM! Although, there are many differing opinions regarding definition of what is and what is not SPAM, we do not wish to enter into that debate in this article. Rather, we will define SPAM simply herein for purpose of this article to mean "any unwanted email message". So, if you didn't ask to receive "an unwanted email message", of whatever kind, then ... How did these "spammers" get your email address in first place to sent it to you? Well, there are many, many ways in which spammers can get "a hold" of your email address :( Every time you post a message in an open forum wherein your email address is "visible", there are those spammers that go and "farm" these email addresses from these public forums and send spam to them. Every time you register your email address at a site that does not "promise" not to share it with or sell it to someone else, that site may be selling your email address to a spammer. If you have your email address explicitely stated in any of your web pages, even just in HTML and perhaps not "visible" on page as such, e.g. in a field, there appear to be spammers who go and "farm" email addresses straight out of your web pages' HTML and send spam to them too. Once one of them has got it they seem to tend to share, sell, etc. your email address with even more spammers and on and on it goes. So, does that mean you should stop posting messages in public forums, registering at web sites and/or making your email address available through your web sites? NO! ... Absolutely Not! Why should we relinquish battlefield to *spammers*? When by Arming Ourselves with right tools and techniques, we can Win War against SPAM! So, how do we Arm Ourselves against SPAM? As saying goes .... "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", right? So, let's start Arming Ourselves by discussing ways in which we may prevent spammers from getting a hold of your email message in first place. You may wish to limit your posting of messages in open forums wherein your email address is "visible". You can disguise (or "munge") your e-mail address when you post it to newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, or other public forums For example, you can give your e-mail address as "wh0Am1@example.c0m" by using number zero instead of letter "o" and "1" instead of "I". This way, reader can interpret your address, but automated programs that spammers use cannot. And you may wish to only register your email address with web sites, etc. whom "promise" not to share it with or sell it to anyone else. However, again, I "bristle" at thought of letting spammers win and in any way curtailing my online activities and/or force me to relinquish any benefit of our wonderful online / virtual world due to their unscrupulous behaviour! ;[ Preventing spammers from "farming" your email address(es) out of HTML of your web pages is a much easier weapon to weild to prevent unscrupulous spammers from getting a hold of your email address(es) in first place. There exist some very nice and easy to use tools that will help you encrypt your email address such that you may include it (encrypted) in HTML for your web pages, your visitors may still click on your email links to mail to you and spammer won't find it to "farm" for their spam mailing lists! One such email address encrypter that we use regularly and recommend is HTML E-mail Link Encrypter, which is one of many webmaster tools and utilities you may get as part of your copy of Fast Selling Software (see below).

You Have A Future On The Internet

After dot.com bubble burst a few years back I really thought that Internet craze was over. With sites folding faster than newbies at a Texas Hold ‘Em table it seemed like all those tech-crazed nerds would have to go out there and get real jobs like rest us. Even stock market seemed to lose interest in Internet and Nasdaq plunged. But, like inevitable sunrise, Internet just continued to grow and build momentum with each passing year. But I am no fool and it occurred to me that I either hop on board or risk consequences of being left behind!

Although most of us are naturally intimidated by things we do not understand we all have capacity to adapt and grow—and this is precisely what I did. I began reading through websites and it hit me completely—this thing is going to be bigger than invention of car, television, or anything that has come before! To thrive in this new, big, and very bold world being created by computer engineers and their counterparts I was going to have to create an e-business of my very own and do so soon! There are literally millions of pages added to web every single day and I didn’t know how to add a single one!