Surviving in the (all lowercase) spam zone
by Andy Trask

Okay, this question is so ridiculous, you may just respond with "Well DUH!!" but nevertheless, let me ask it of you the readers: Do you know what spam is? Of course I'm referring to the spam of the Internet, also known by the drier technical terms "Unsolicited Commercial Email" or "UCE" by us geeks. In fact, Hormel Foods, the makers of the other (or should I say the "original?") SPAM even allow the use of the term "spam" for UCE, but point out that certain rules must be followed in order to prevent trademark infringement.

According to the official Hormel Foods SPAM website the origin of the term "spam" lies in a skit done by the English comedy troupe Monty Python "in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of 'SPAM, SPAM, SPAM . . . ' in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet." Another not-so-trivial point is that while Hormel Foods officially allows the term spam to be used for UCE, their legal beagles distinguish between UCE spam being spelled all lowercase while the Hormel luncheon meat product is spelled using the distinctively all-uppercase SPAM.

All funning aside, unless you're a total newbie or have somehow managed to avoid ever having an email account, you probably know the answer to my original spam question and are likewise dogged by a daily influx of this unwanted junk email. So what, if anything, can you do about it? The answers are many depending on your relationship to the Internet, but first and foremost, my advice to you is this: Unless you've got a hankerin' for even more junkmail, don't respond to spam emails no matter how incredible or even sincere they may appear to be!

Although some people are less forgiving, I actually draw a distinction between two kinds of commonly encountered spam based on the origins of the material. That is, if I were to shop online at Sears and then suddenly start receiving spam emails from them advertising special tool offers (which the Tim Allen in me personally finds difficult to ignore), I would feel comfortable responding to them. At least to the extent of requesting removal from their maillist. On the other end of the scale, when super-amazing-get-rich-quick spam shows up in my mailbox, I'm more likely to delete it than respond. I wouldn't even respond to request removal! The reason for this is simple enough. If you are dealing with a reputable organization online such as Sears or Amazon.com or L.L.Bean, your request to be removed from their maillist is generally respected as a means of maintaining their reputation. On the other hand, when a fly-by-night organization with no reputation to uphold blasts out a million spam emails to a list of people that they have no relationship with, chances are, your response to them, even if it's a request for removal, will serve only to identify you as a "live lead." This of course could then generate further emails or other unwanted attempts at contact.

Getting back to this relationship thing, your relationship with the Internet is largely a function of your Internet Service Provider (or ISP for you geek-speakers). The point being that many ISPs including AOL, and the newly renamed COMCAST (The artist formerly known as ATTBI, formerly Mediaone, formerly Roadrunner, etc...) offer online filtering services that you can set up to block unwanted emails by individual addresses or even by entire domains! Other ISPs, while not so generous with the online tools, may still offer spam-reporting processes and anti-spam policies that are sometimes helpful in driving away spammers. No matter what though, if you're serious about limiting spam in your inbox, you should visit your ISP's website and see what they have to offer.

What else can you do? One of my favorite tricks is to create a special "junk mail" account using a free service such as hotmail. Then, whenever I'm signing up for something online where I need to submit an email address, I use the junk mail account and then any resulting spam is directed to that account. By giving out my "real" email address only to friends, family, and professional contacts, I conveniently keep my main email account relatively spam-free and you can too!

Andy Trask is the Head Geek at Geek Housecalls (on the web at www.geekhousecalls.com). Based in Lexington Mass, Geek Housecalls provides computer hardware and software troubleshooting, networking, installations, upgrades, and general assistance to residential and small business computer users in Boston and the surrounding North, South, and Western suburbs as well as Rhode Island and southern New Hampshire. If you have a question or topic you'd like to see addressed by The Geeks, please send email to: agtm@geekhousecalls.com

If you're interested in reprinting this or other articles from this series on a website or in a printed publication please contact Andy Trask at andy@geekhousecalls.com for information about our liberal sharing policy!

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