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How to Prevent Spam, or Junk Email
SeaJester

       As you may have noticed by now, getting "junk mail" or "spam" is a real problem on the internet, and doing some of the aforementioned Email pitfalls is one way your Email address gets on the Spammers "Junk Mail" lists. Unfortunately sending out junk mail or "Spam" is even being done by brand name, reputable companies and web sites. Even if they "swear" to keep the info "confidential", don't you believe them. There is big money in selling and using mailing lists, and most engage in it.
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The reason my Email Address is in a picture and not page text is that a graphic can only be read by a real human. You may have heard about "Spiders" crawling around the WWWeb. Well they are real and they constantly "cruise" the Internet and web pages searching for Guess What? Yours and mine and everyone's Email Address. This is one of the primary ways that Spammers compile their mailing lists.
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       You will also notice there is no "Guest Book" to sign on this web site. Yes they even look in other peoples Guest Books to find your Email Address.
Whenever you put your Email Address into some form on the Internet, your address is going into someone's mailing list, and may eventually be sold or traded to the dreaded Spammers.
I know sometimes you have to enter you reply Email Address into a form of some company from whom you are requesting information, technical help, or buying on-line. You can only hope that they will not distribute their mailing list to others.
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For this reason many savvy web cruisers maintain a separate Email Address just for this purpose. An easy way to accomplish this is to sign up with one of those "Free Email" services on the Internet. As it is free and you can have as many as you like, if it starts receiving too much junk mail, simply close it down and open a new one. Some services even filter out the junk mail for you, such as HotMail.
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Here are links to the 3 major services. There are many more if you want to search them out using one of the search engines. Each one has different advantages and disadvantages, so read the details of what they offer.
Mail.com
Yahoo!
HotMail

Give out your personal address only to your friends, and/or, business contacts.
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Well I hope I have not made you paranoid about using Email. It is one of the most fun and useful things on the Internet, unfortunately there are people out there who take advantage of the "unaware". Don't be paranoid but consider this. If all the registered "dot coms" sent out only one spam junk mailing per year, everyone on the internet would receive over 2000 junk mails PER DAY. The shear volume would overload even fast Email Servers and bring the system to a crawl. It would be even worse than the early years of only 1200-Baud rate modem connections.
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I hope you found at least some useful information here.
My parting thought: "All Swords have two edges, and can cut both ways. Knowledge is Power, but can also be your Shield".
If you follow these suggestions even with your other Email friends, you will probably find them appreciative.
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Helpful Hint: If you want to send pictures and multimedia to your friends on the Internet, set yourself up a personal web site, and put your pictures, with captions, there. Then just send a simple Plain Text Email to your friends with each updated HyperLink (URL Address) to your own web pages. Your Dial-Up ISP provider may provide you with space for a personal web site, that is included in your existing Dial-Up account. Also there are many places on the Internet that offer free web site space. It is free, fun, and remarkably easy. That way your friends can see your nifty pictures, at their convenience, and not be forced to download them when getting their Emails. They will Love you for your efforts, and enjoy your pictures much more, and probably put you in their wills.
Just do NOT put yours or their Email Address on your web site, unless you use the image technique you see here.

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