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The only way to keep up with the latest about Spam Protection is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you find about Spam Protection, it won’t take long for you to become an influential authority.

There are several myths and misconceptions that abound when it comes to Phishing. These are the top 5 most common ones:

Myth #1

Anti-spam software can detect phishing email

While anti-phishing and spam filters can decrease the number of phising emails that get into your inbox, they are not 100% effective. Whenever anti-phishing technology keeps improving, the phishers are always devising ways to get around them. It truly is a cat-and-mouse game.

Secondly, because spam email and phishing email are different (phishing email spoofs a legitimate business), a different set of rules and criteria are required to detect the phisher.

Myth #2

As long as I don’t give my password and user-name, I won’t be Phished

Phishers are getting increasingly sophisticated. They now employ several variations on the original spoofed email that once requested your password and user-name.

They will, for example, instruct you to click on a link so as to update your information at a website. If you do click on the link, malware such as a keylogger or syware wil be downloaded to your computer.
The link may take you to a spoofed website, but it may also link you to the actual website of the legitimate business. Once there, a pop-up or overlay is activated, directing you to log in. You will probably be unaware that your access information has been compromised.

Myth #3

Sometimes the most important aspects of a subject are not immediately obvious. Keep reading to get the complete picture.

Most Phishing attacks originate from outside

With all the time and effort that has been poured into the Nigerian 419 spam scams, it is commonly assumed that phishing originates from emerging countries outside America. However, a study by Symantec shows that the majority of phishing attacks actually originate within the U.S.

Myth #4

Phishing is a problem that we can solve by educating users

This is not true. There are various ways the phisher can camouflage an IP address. In fact, a large proportion of phishing attacks are enabled through common misconfigurations in a web application. Phishers can manipulate internet technology to redirect you from a real and legitimate website, in such a way that although the original web address points to this real web site you are taken to the phisher’s web site.

As the incidents of phishing and identity theft have increased, people have become more aware, and better able to identify phishing emails. The percentage of phishing victims has gone down. However, even though users are getting better educated and informed about phishing, there is always still a chance that someone will mistake a well-crafted phishing email for the real thing.

Myth #5

I will know one when I see one

This is another misconception regarding phishing, and a potentially dangerous one at that, especially in our digital world. With all the time, talent and technology available to them, these cyber crooks have more than ample resources to create and execute increasingly realistic email spam, web site spoofs or other electronic means by which to scam you out of your confidential financial data and wreak havoc on your financial affairs.

Vigilance is, in fact, your number one protection against the phisher’s hook. Underestimating the phishers may cost you.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Spam is commercial email that is sent out in bulk to millions of people without their consent. It is may contain advertising messages for regular products and services but increasingly, it is email of an inappropriate, offensive or malicious nature.

Today, many children have an email address that they use to email their friends, submit homework, etc. It is a fun, inexpensive and instant way to keep in touch. However, as the volume of spam keeps rising, the need to protect children from the dangers of spam is a growing concern.

Like all other Internet users, children are just as susceptible to receiving spam as are adults. And because spam is an equal opportunity menace, kids are just as likely to receive spam that contains adult and pornographic material. While there is really no way to totally eliminate the possibility of your kids receiving spam, there are steps you can take to minimize it. Here are a few:

Here are a few tips to help protect your kids from spam

Email Filters

Your email service comes with email filters built in. You can use these to filter your child’s email into specific folders, and filter spam into the trash folder. This involves setting up rules that your email program will follow in determining what action to take on incoming messages: to let it through to the inbox, send it to trash or to block the sender.

Your email spam filter program will apply these rules based on certain words in the subject line or body of the email. For example, if an email contains the word “viagra,” it will be sent directly to the trash and the sender blocked.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Spam Protection story from informed sources.

Spam Blocker

Your email service may also come with a spam blocker. If it does not, it may be worth your while to invest in one for your child’s computer. Where-as your email filter filters incoming email into folders, the spam blocker blocks spam from going through the system. It checks your mail server every 10 minutes, where it deletes the spam and destroys any viruses it finds. Legitimate email is let on the server and downloads to the inbox when you log in.

Whitelists

Set up an email account for your child that “whitelists” only specific email addresses. A whitelist is just a list of trusted and approved email addresses. For example, you can have the addresses of your child’s grandparents, aunts and uncles whitelisted. Whenever email is received from any of the whitelisted addresses, it goes directly to your child’s inbox. All other email addresses are blocked.

Monitor, Monitor, Monitor

Be sure to log into your child’s email account on a regular basis to monitor the incoming and outgoing messages, and to ensure that the spam filter and spam block are working appropriately.
Using your email spam filter, you can set up a rule that will ensure that a copy of every email that is sent and received on your child’s account is forwarded to your own email address

It is very important to educate your children on the dangers of spam and how to handle it if they do receive any in their inbox.

The day will come when you can use something you read about here to have a beneficial impact. Then you’ll be glad you took the time to learn more about Spam Protection.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Spam Protection.

It is virtually impossible to avoid having your email address end up on a spammer’s mailing list. You can, however, take steps to minimize the amount of spam that you receive. Here are to top five:

Address Munging

Never, ever post your permanent email address publicly online. Posting it on a website, on USENET, or in a guest book, for example, virtually guarantees that it will end up on a spammer’s emailing list.

If you absolutely have to supply an address, or regularly participate in online forums but do not want further communication, camouflage your address in some way. You can, for example, disguise your address by writing it in such a way that humans can read it, but the spammers automated programs cannot.

Example: instead of JaneDoe@ISP.com, add a blank space before and after the “@” sign, or use characters e.g. JaneDoe at ISP dot com.

This is reffered to as “address munging”. While address munging does not allow for a regular, clickable email link, anyone who really wants to contact you will figure it out the proper address.

If you have a website, provide a feedback form instead of giving your email address.

Sign up for an Alternative Email Addresses

Do not use your primary email address when placing an online order, getting a free download, or want to sign up for a newsletter or free service Get a secondary email address that you can use in these instances. You can open a free email account for this purpose. Email providers such as GMail and yahoo offer this free email service.

The more authentic information about Spam Protection you know, the more likely people are to consider you a Spam Protection expert. Read on for even more Spam Protection facts that you can share.

Reserve this email address specifically for this online activity – do not offer it to people from whom you want to receive email, as this will likely be lost in the deluge of junk mail.

Also, be sure to log into this account on a regular basis to delete the junk mail and avoid having the account closed. If you get over-spammed, just close this account and open a new one.

Choose an email address that cannot be easily guessed at. One method used by spammers to get email address is to generate a list of likely email addresses based on a combination of first names, last names and commonly used words. They may, for example build an emailing list that has variations of an address like JoelDoe1@hotmail.com, JoelDoe2@hotmail.com etc.
You can foil this spammer’s tactic by using a relatively long email address, for example 8 or more characters long. You should also avoid choosing email addresses that include either of your names. Use your initials instead, in combination with numbers, e.g. jtd1509@yahoo.com.

Beware the Phisher Spam

Phishing is a tactic used by spammers to scam you into giving up vital personal and financial information. Its sole purpose is identity theft.

Never divulge any personal or financial information that is requested in an email. Your bank or credit card company would never ask you to confirm or update your personal information via an email or a link in an email. Any such emails should be reported to the bank or credit card company. Never, ever click on any links in this type of spam.

Get a spam filter or spam blocker

Stop the spam dead in its tracks before it ever makes it into your inbox. Well, most of it at least. Though they are not 100% effective, anti-spam software will keep most of it out. Even if you only use the internet a spam filter will help protect you from spam.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

When most people think of Spam Protection, what comes to mind is usually basic information that’s not particularly interesting or beneficial. But there’s a lot more to Spam Protection than just the basics.

The threats posed by spam are always evolving, and phishing is one of the most recent scams the spammers have come up with.
Your most important protection against phishing is vigilance and a healthy skepticism. You can, however, supplement this with Anti-phishing software programs

Anti-phishing software works by detecting phishing content that may be contained in an email. It is genrallly used in conjunction with your email service as a toolbar. This tool bar will display the real name of any website you visit, and expose any spoofed websites that phishers may attempt to use.

This software is offers a second line of defense to for blocking phishing attacks and sites that might have foiled and bypassed by your browser’s built-in protection. Here are a few of them:

Earthlink Toolbar Scamblocker
Offers a check towards a phishing blacklist of sites
Checks the owner and location of the web site
Prevention against phishing and pop ups

Earthlink offers a free browser toolbar that includes ScamBlocker, an application that protects you against phishing scams and phishing pop ups. It will, for example, warn you when you attempt to connect to a website that is on Earthlink’s balcklist of fraudulent sites. It will analie each web page hat you visit and display a security rating of the webpage on its toolbar.

Earthlink’s Scamblocker can be downloaded at this link:

http://www.earthlink.net/software/free/toolbar/

Netcraft Anti-phishing Toolbar
When a one recipient of a phishing email reports it, the relevant URL is blocked for the rest of the Netcraft community members.

It will display for you the website’s hosting location, which will help expose fraudulent urls. Say, for example, you are on the bankofamerica.com website, the hosting location is unlikely to be in Poland.
The toolbar will also detect any web addresses that contain letters or characters that are only used in the URL to deceive.

It’s really a good idea to probe a little deeper into the subject of Spam Protection. What you learn may give you the confidence you need to venture into new areas.

The Netcraft Anti-phishing Toolbar can be downloaded at this link:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/

TrustWatch Toolbar
This free toolbar is also designed to protect against phishing, identity theft and internet fraud. It does real-time checks to let you know if a web site you are visiting has been verified by a legitimate third party organization, and if it is therefore safe to transmit your confidential personal information. It is the internet equivalent of a credit check.

The TrustWatch Toolbar can be downloaded at this link:

http://toolbar.trustwatch.com/

Stopzilla Anti-Spyware 5.0
STOPzilla works by detwecting and blocking Phishing Attacks, Popup Ads, Spyware, Adware and other malicious applications. It also provides hijack protection.

Stopzilla can be downloaded at this link:

http://www.stopzilla.com/

Spybot – Search and Destroy
This is a free Anti-Spyware application. An important feature of this application is that it will Write-protect your computer’s HOSTS file, which is a primary target of phishers’spyware.

Spybot can be downloaded at this link:

http://www.safer-networking.org

Webroot’s Phish net
Phish Net employs a dynamic blacklist to protect against phishing. The application stores your personal data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. When you visit a site and attempt to enter this information, a pop-up will alert you that it is not on your list of trusted sites, and will expose any redirects that the may be involved in the transmission of your data. It will also verify that the site has an encrypted connection before it transmits the data.

Webroot’s Phish net can be downloaded at this link:

http://www.webroot.com/consumer/products/

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Spam was once just clutter in your inbox; now it is a commonly used vehicle for fraud, electronic crime and even corporate espionage. The 4 Ws of spam answer the most commonly asked questions about spam.

What is Spam?

Spam, also called junk email, is generally defined in the Internet industry as unsolicited commercial email (UCE). It is email that is sent out in bulk to a huge number of recipients who did not request it. The contents of spam range from benign advertising to malicious programs that can literally hijack your computer system do grave damage.

The most common commercial spam advertises pyramid schemes, pornographic web sites, mortgage loans, chain letters, credit repair, fraudulent pharmaceuticals and illegally pirated software. The more dangerous spam will often contain viruses that can infect your computer, Trojan horses that can hijack your email program and use it to send out spam to your friends and family, and phishing scams that attempt to get your personal and financial information.

Who Spams?

“Spammer” is the term used to refer to those responsible for spam. In the Spam world, there are two types of spammers. There are the honest spammers who comply with the anti-spam laws, and have the consent of the spam recipients. These willing recipients usually join the honest spammer’s “opt-in” mailing list by signing up at a website, for example to enter a lottery, or to be notified of future promotions.
Then there are the dishonest spammers, who will get your email addresses by any means possible. They use their spam for criminal or malicious purposes and have zero regard for the law.
Spammers range from the lone, home-based individual to multi-million dollar companies with several employees. Most of the spam companies are increasingly relocating to offshore locations to evade US laws and law enforcement.

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about Spam Protection. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

Where do the Spammers Get your Email Address From?

Spammers get their victim’s email addresses from just about anywhere you can imagine. Primarily, they use Newsgroup harvesters and Spambots, which are automated programs designed to “harvest” (extract) email addresses from online sites. Newsgroup harvesters target newsgroup postings and other unprotected web-based forums, which tend to have low security. Spambots troll the Internet, scanning websites and “harvesting” (extracting) email addresses. It typically searches for the “@” sign that denotes an email address.

The average spambot can harvest over 30,000 email addresses in just one hour. And this goes on 24/7, year and year out.
There are also companies that sell CDs that are packed with valid email addresses. These can sell for as little as $25, and they are a goldmine for any spammer.

Why do Spammers Spam?

In a word? Money. Spammers literally make millions from their illicit trade. Studies show that for every million junk emails sent out, a spammer will average about 100 sales. Add to this the fact that they make $50-$100 in commission for each sale, and you can see how the numbers add up to incomes in excess of $100,000 a year! What’s more, spamming can cost next to nothing.

But why does spamming continue despite its cost in time, effort and money? Because there are people out there who respond to spam. Even with a minimal response rate of one sale from every 10,000 emails, it can be highly profitable. If no one responded to spam, the spammer’s cash cow would starve and the practice would end. It is these few who keep the spammers in business. They make the cost of spamming worthwhile.

Now that wasn’t hard at all, was it? And you’ve earned a wealth of knowledge, just from taking some time to study an expert’s word on Spam Protection.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Have you ever wondered what exactly is up with Spam Protection? This informative report can give you an insight into everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Spam Protection.

The spammer’s most fervent hope is that you are ignorant of the tricks and tactics used to spam your inbox. Learning the spammer’s nefarious ways is your best protection against spam.

Manipulating Text:

This is one of the most commonly used spamming techniques. Spammers will manipulate the text in the email, to foil the anti-spam filters. They may, for example, deliberately misspell some words: “M0rtg4ge” for example. They may add characters or spaces to words in the email header, to make the email seem unique from other email. Like this: X_A_N_A_X Here’s an example, . They may also insert random strings of text within the email.

Chain Letters:

Spammers may send out chain letter instructing you to forward the email to your friends and family. To entice you to do so, it may claim that forwarding it will bring good luck. This spam may carry viruses or a Trojan horse, which is sent along to anyone you forward the email to.

Image-based Spam:

The spammer sends out spam that contains an image in GIF format. This image bears the spammy message. Image-based spam is effective in by-passing spam filters because they are generally text-based.

Dictionary attacks:

This is a technique used by the spammers to find email addresses that they can spam. It involves trying random combinations of common names and words, and using these to making up email addresses, e.g. JaneDoe@YourISP.com, JDoe@YourISP.com, JaneDoe1@YourISP.com. The spammer will then send out junk email to the different variations of these addresses in the hope that some of it will go through,

Spammers tend to direct the dictionary attacks at the large email companies, which have a large number of customers.

The best time to learn about Spam Protection is before you’re in the thick of things. Wise readers will keep reading to earn some valuable Spam Protection experience while it’s still free.

Email spoofing:

Email spoofing involves the use of a fake email header that is written to make it look like someone other than the spammer sent the email. Very often, the spammer will make it look like the email came from a credible source such as your bank or yahoo, and try to get you to reply with personal information such as a password, social security number or credit card number. This technique is widely used because it is easy to do, and tends to catch the recipients off guard.

JavaScript:

The spammer can use Javascript that will ensure that the spam is only visible when the email is loaded. This type of spam can only be prevented using anti-spam software that decodes or blocks the java script.

Social engineering:

This spammer ploy attempts to fool the recipient into reading the junk email by pretending to be an acquaintance. It involves a junk email that has a “personal” subject line, such as “I’m leaving tomorrow,” “I got your message” or “Let’s meet again”.

Mining message boards and chat rooms:

When you post a message to a message board or chat room and leave your email address, automated programs called spambots will find your address and add it to the spammer’s mailing list. Much like a listed phone number in the telephone directory, leaving your email at these types of websites makes it public information.

Web beacons:

A web beacon, also called an “invisible GIF,” is an image sent out with spam that is invisible to the recipient. When the email is opened, the spammer will be alerted that your email address is “live.”

Open proxy, 3rd-party servers:

An open proxy is a third-party server that enables the spammers to camouflage their real identities as well as their Internet locations, when they send out their junk mail. Many spammers use these open proxy servers to help maintain their anonymity.

Knowing enough about Spam Protection to make solid, informed choices cuts down on the fear factor. If you apply what you’ve just learned about Spam Protection, you should have nothing to worry about.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

In the race to provide the best anti-spam system to fight the ever-growing threat of spam email, there are a few which stand out among the for-pay software systems. Some are software programs, while others are web-based systems that function by sending your email through their service before it gets to you. The web-based filter has the added benefit of not permitting spam to get through to your system, in the first place; on the other hand, if valid email is filtered out and isn’t spam, its difficult to recover it.

Here are reviews of top-rated spam filters

Mailwasher:

The Mailwasher spam filter is a very efficient and secure spam filtering tool. It combines a number of different techniques to detect and delete spam before it gets to your inbox, as well as protecting your computer from viruses. These techniques include: using statistics, blacklisting and white-listing, databases and advanced learning filtration.
Mail Washer supports IMAP and POP accounts, as well as MSN, AOL and Hotmail. However, it does not offer IMAP or POP proxy filtering.
This spam filter takes a bit of time to “learn” what you think is spam, and in time will be highly efficient in its spam filtration.

Only My Email:

Is on an online web based filtration system, so there is no software to download or install. Because it is not downloaded to your computer itself, the spam filtering operations will never affect your computer’s performance. Your email is filtered prior to coming to your computer and the spam will never be downloaded to your personal machine. You also get a daily spam report.

Truthfully, the only difference between you and Spam Protection experts is time. If you’ll invest a little more time in reading, you’ll be that much nearer to expert status when it comes to Spam Protection.

Only My Email is an extremely accurate anti-spam filter. It is capable of filtering up to three IMAP or POP email accounts.

Cloudmark Desktop:

This is a great, easy to use anti-spam filter. It is a plug-in for Outlook and Outlook Express. This software is highly accurate, with a great spam detection rate and relatively low false positives.

Cloudmark Desktop uses a database of spammers to identify and filter out spam. This database is updated by the community of over a million Cloudmark users. For example, when you identify a message as spam, it is automatically deleted from other Cloudmark users’ inboxes as well. Phishing spam faces the same fate. This spam filter deletes spam immediately or moves it into a dedicated folder for further action from you or later deletion.
Cloudmark Desktop is a subscription service that needs to be renewed annually. There are still some areas in which improvement is needed such as in the case of false positive spam removal, but all in all, it is a great spam and phishing email solution.

CA Anti-spam

Previously known as eTrust Anti-Spam, this software is a whitelist spam filter. This means that it will only permit mail from those you have added to your whitelist and will quarantine all other emails. Once approved, messages from a previously quarantined sender will be moved to your inbox. It also updates your whitelist by scanning you outgoing email.

While CA Anti-spam works well for those who receive only mail from those they know, but may not be practical for those who receive large volumes of email from several legitimate but unknown sources.

As your knowledge about Spam Protection continues to grow, you will begin to see how Spam Protection fits into the overall scheme of things. Knowing how something relates to the rest of the world is important too.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Phishing is an email spam scam that is specifically used to commit identity theft. Its sole purpose is to scam you into divulging personal information, which they can use to perpetrate identity theft. This includes passwords, card numbers, birth dates, PINs and other vital personal data. The term came into use to denote the way phishers bait to lure their victims into divulging private data. Industry experts define this devious practice as a form of “social engineering.”

Typically, a phishing attack will be executed in combination with a massive spam mailing. Phishing spam is sent out to millions of recipients, often with a subject line that is exciting or upsetting. It is calculated to trigger an immediate reaction from the recipient, and get them to respond without further thought.

The phishing email will often have phrases such as:

-Dear Valued Customer.
-Click the link below to access to your account.
-If you don’t respond within 24 hours, your account shall be closed.

The phishing spam is typically a fraudulent but very official-looking e-mail. It is cleverly designed to replicate the website and email messages of a business you know and trust such as your bank or mortgage company. The email will even sport official logos and graphics of the legitimate company.

Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there’s more to Spam Protection than you may have first thought.

It will instruct you to click on a link in the email to go to the company’s website, where you can “update” your personal information. The link will usually be “masked,” which means that when you click on it, it will take you to a phony web address. Clicking on the link will take you to a website that appears to be that of the real financial institution’s website. It is, however, just a copycat spoof, set up to give the spammer access to your personal and financial data. You may give your information thinking you are at the real website. Instead, any information you enter here will go directly to the identity thieves.

What are the Consequences?

If you fall prey to the scam and unwittingly divulge private information, you will be left vulnerable to identity theft, credit card fraud and other financial mishaps.

These identity thieves will either sell the information to fellow criminals, or use it for their own financial gain. This vital personal data will be used, for example, to set up fraudulent online bill pay, with payments made out to the phisher. They may use it to access funds from your bank accounts and credit cards and transfer them to their own checking accounts. They may even use a copy of your bank or credit card along with the phished PIN to withdraw cash from your accounts at any ATM.

Phishing is a numbers game for these criminal spammers. They will send out their phishing email to millions of recipients. They count on just a few falling for the scam and volunteering their information: if a mere 1% of recipients volunteer their personal information, the phishing expedition will be a hughly lucrative. It is these few who make their scam worthwhile.

This article’s coverage of the information is as complete as it can be today. But you should always leave open the possibility that future research could uncover new facts.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

The following article covers a topic that has recently moved to center stage–at least it seems that way. If you’ve been thinking you need to know more about it, here’s your opportunity.

Never respond directly to any unsolicited email that asks you to update or verify your personal information. Banks, stores and other legitimate businesses will never ask you to give this information via email, particularly following the advent of phishing.

If there is any doubt as to whether or not the email is from who it purports to be, contact the company immediately to confirm and clarify the request for information. Be sure to call a phone number from your statement. Calling the phone number in the email is probably a direct line to the identity thief.

Never click on a link in any such email. To do so would be to risk downloading malicious Trojan horse spyware, which will install keyloggers in your computer system. This would provide hackers direct access to all the personal data stored on your computer, which they will use for their own nefarious financial gain.

Never, ever fill out forms contained in an email that request personal information. The mere request for this information should ring a loud alarm bell. Phishers are able to use HTML to design very official-looking email messages. Any information entered into these forms goes directly to the phisher

Never trust links contained in unsolicited email. Phishers have devised ways to spoof legitimate website links. Common tricks that are used include misspelling web addresses or using sub-domains that include the name of a legitimate business.

An email link can also be “masked” in such a way that it displays a very official looking text-link to a legitimate company’s website, but clicking on it will take you to the phisher’s web site.

See how much you can learn about Spam Protection when you take a little time to read a well-researched article? Don’t miss out on the rest of this great information.

Do not cut and paste the link contained in the message into your browser. Type the address of the legitimate company in a separate browser window, so as to bypass having to click on the link in a suspected phishing email.

Always be suspicious of impersonal email. Almost all email communication from legitimate businesses will contain some specific piece of personal information that is not readily available to anyone but you. An email from your bank, for example may include part of your account number.
Always keep in mind that here are malicious people out there who do nothing more than think up creative, innovative ways to get at your personal information.

Be sure to use anti-syware and anti-virus software, and keep these regularly updated. Anti-spam filter software may help eliminate or minimize the amount of phishing spam you will receive in your inbox.

Be very cautious of opening any emailed attachments you receive, even if they seem to be from an acquaintance.

Help catch the phishers by reporting any phishing attempts. Forward the phishing email to the company that is being spoofed. Also forward it to these email addresses as well:
spam@uce.gov and reportphishing@antiphishing.org. This information will be used by the Anti-Phishing Working Group to fight phishing. This organization is a coalition between the internet industry, and financial institutions and law enforcement.

Learn more and stay informed by visiting the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft website: www.consumer.gov/idtheft.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Spam Protection.

Spam has become an ever-increasing problem in recent years, costing legitimate businesses a great deal in both time and money.

In response to the growing threat from spam, new legislation was enacted in 2003. it was called: Controlling the Assault of Non Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM act). This act created some requirements for all companies who are sending bulk commercial email, as well as those companies whose products are offered for sale in the spam emails. It also instituted penalties for violators, as well as giving the client or consumer the right and the means to request that the emailers cease the spam efforts.

CAN-SPAM was enacted in January, 2004. The act covers any email which have as its purpose advertising or promotional efforts for any service or product, including those whose contents reside solely on a web site.

The legislation also covers “transactional or relationship messages,” meaning those emails which help a web site to deal with any transaction, even those which are agreed on, or make updates to any customer whether new or exisiting. None of these may contain false or spoofed routing information.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the United States agency for consumer protection, was granted the authority to enforce the act and the DOJ, or Department of Justice is additionally charged with the enforcement of the CAN SPAM act. It also provides that Internet Service Providers who are hurt by the spam may in fact sue the violators of the legislation to recoup losses to their own business.

Other Major Provisions of the Law

-It bans any attempt to falsify the information in the header or subject line.

Most of this information comes straight from the Spam Protection pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.

These must correctly identify what the message is about, and accurately display routing information as well as “To” and “from” information. The email must accurately indicate the identity of the sender and recipient. It must accurately portray the domain from which the email originates as well as the senders real email address.

- It bans misleading subject lines

The subject line must not mislead the recipient to open the email under false pretenses. It should clearly indicate the actual subject matter of the email.

- Emails sent in this fashion must offer the recipient a legitimate means to get out of receiving the commercial email in the future. Any such requests to opt-out must be honored by the spamming company, and the email address deleted from its sending list. The commercial emailer will have 10 days to after the request to cease sending messages to that address

- Commercial bulk email should easily be identified as an advertisement or solicitation. It must also include the sender’s actual physical postal address

- The recipient must be fore-warned of any sexually explicit information the email may contain. This warning must be displayed in the email’s subject line.

Each and every violation of this law or the aspects of the law subjects the sender to strict fines that can go as high as $10,000 per incident and, for certain violations, the commercial emailer will face possible jail time.

Another legal initiative aimed at fighting spam is the “Digital PhishNet” (DPN), which was established in 2004. It is a collaborative effort between the Internet industry and criminal law enforcement. Its purpose is to identify and to prosecute spammers who break the law through phishing. Online auction sites, financial institutions, ISPs and other groups within the industry are all involved in this imitative. Important data and information is forwarded in real time to law enforcement.

Sometimes it’s tough to sort out all the details related to this subject, but I’m positive you’ll have no trouble making sense of the information presented above.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO