Under the concept of Spam, we understand non-solicited messages, normally of an advertising type, sent massively. Although this can be done through many ways, electronic mail is the most used by the general public.

Junk mail through the electronic mail was born the 5th of March, 1994. On that date, a lawyer company, Canter and Siegel, published on the Usenet an advertising message of their legal firm, which invoiced, the first day after published, almost 10,000 dollars from readings from friends and net readers. From them on, marketing through electronic mail has grown to unthinkable levels.

How can I prevent being considered Spam and end up on the Unsolicited mail folder?

Tips to avoid junk mail

How can I prevent being considered Spam and end up on the Unsolicited mail folder?

• There are some good practices not to end up on the Spam folder, but maybe the most important are the following:
- Never write ON CAPITAL LETTERS the message’s subject.
- Do not abuse the exclamation marks!!!!!!
- Do not use phrases like: ‘Click here’, ‘Life opportunity’ or ‘Earn money easily’.
- On the email body, never use fonts in bright green, red or white
- Do not use HTML code from Microsoft Word
- Do not use a sole image as the body of the message.

Tips to avoid junk mail

Users can also follow some advice to prevent receiving unwanted mail as:

1-Never do lists with email addresses, and if you do, do not forward the list.
Because the system works like this: a person receives an interesting article, and immediately forwards it to all his friends, and he does it by including all the addresses in the email. The problem is that each recipient gets a copy of all the addresses. Then, a friend of the first person forwards the email to all his friends, doing the same, and it goes on until finally the list ends up on the hands of someone who is in the Spam business. The first person who received the email should have sent a separate copy to each of his friends or set the list on the BCC field – hidden copy.

2- Never reply to an un-requited email
To someone working in this ‘business’, one hit justifies everything they do. If you are interested on any of the products offered on these emails, go to the web site where it is also offered.

3.- Never follow the junk mail’s instructions to reply with the word ‘remove’
This is a trick they use to know the reaction we have on these emails, and it also alerts the Spammer that ours is really a valid address used by someone. If you reply, probably you will be added to a list and you will receive more junk emails.

4-Never subscribe to a site that promises to remove your name from Spam lists
These sites are of two types: the sincere, and the ones that do this to recollect addresses. The former are used by the latter, and in both cases, your address is more worthy, as it is identified as a valid address that belongs to a user.

5- Do not try to become a Hacker to refrain spammers or hype the spam sites.
This will only increase the traffic in the Internet, gives sympathy to the spammers, and makes the Net less trustworthy than it is at the moment.

By reviewing these suggestions, any person will notice that, some times, probably most of them, it’s us who are responsible for the sending and receiving of Spam. On the other hand, a user could blame their ISP or site where his email account is hosted, because they allow them to receive spam. And this is not only on a user level, but also on a company level, where, by the way, they are also Spam victims, and the damage is much more severe.