Unsolicited Offers—How to Protect Yourself

You just launched your business website. Your site hasn't even been indexed by the search engines yet, but you're suddenly flooded by email. Some is obviously junk, but some of it looks legit. Is it? How can you distinguish legitimate email from junk email, and how can you bar unwanted email? Read on to learn about common types of email scams and tips to stop junk emails.

Types of Unsolicited Email: Name That Scam

Domain Name Registration Expiration

You may receive email notifying you that your domain registration will expire imminently and that you need to renew asap or risk losing your website address. Generally, these emails are from someone other than your current registrar, and—if you "pay up"—you will probably pay a much higher rate. If you think you've paid and ignore the valid renewal, you could lose your domain name! Check with your registrar or your website developer before renewing your domain registration. Keep your registrar information and domain renewal date handy, and note your renewal date on your calendar! Just be sure to renew BEFORE your domain expires.

Web Hosting Expiration

Similar to the domain registration expiration notices above, web hosting expiration scams may also end up costing you even more than money. Even if the web hosting rates being offered are less than you are currently paying, if you already have a web host contract, you may end up paying twice. Plus, you don't know what kind of service or reliability are being offered. Transferring your site may result in frequent loss of service and worse. Do your research and check with your website developer before taking up one of these dubious offers.

Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

We all want higher rankings. So when you see these offers to submit your website to hundreds of search engines, you think "What's wrong with that?" If you really want to take up these offers—some of them are free—you certainly can. But you shouldn't. Why not? Doing so will open you up to even more spam with no actual benefits. These unknown search engines don't help your search engine rankings. All anyone truly cares about are the biggies: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Phishing

Bank X sends you an urgent email that implores you to click on a link to update your personal information. The problem is that you've never heard of this bank. Or you get an email that requests that you confirm your account information for an account you do have. These scammers are just trying to gain access to your personal information—don't "bite" on their hooks! Even if you receive an email from somewhere you have an account, do not click on a link to their site. Some of these phony emails are very sophisticated and seem authentic, but most companies will tell you they will never ask for sensitive information via email. If you are unsure about the request, phone the company for verification. And when you access your account, always type the URL into your browser and check for appropriate site security factors, such as "https" in the URL, before entering any personal information.

How Do Spammers Get Your Email Address?

If you own a domain name, spammers can harvest your email address, and they routinely send to standard addresses such as contact@, info@, webmaster@, and support@. This doesn't mean you shouldn't use these addresses. Just realize that you will get spam, and, if you use email filtering systems, some legitimate emails might not get through. Spammers will also send emails to any other combination of possible names at the domain name.

When setting up your site, you should decide whether you want a "catch-all" account. A "catch-all" account is one that sends any and all email to you even if the email address doesn't have a mailbox. These email addresses will include made-up or simply mistyped addresses. If you choose not to have a catch-all account, incorrect emails will be bounced back to the sender with an auto-reply informing them this is an invalid address. You may customize the auto-reply to ask that people phone you if their email is bounced—spambots can't telephone.

Tips to Eliminate Junk Email

Set Up Email Filters

There are two types of email filtering systems you can use to block unwanted email. The first type is the filtering settings you can set up within your own email program. Many people are unaware that these settings exist. Although they aren't necessarily intuitive, these settings are included in virtually all email programs. There are also programs that you can install on your computer that work together with your email filtering settings to provide additional filtering.

The second type is server-side email filters. These filters stop unwanted email before it ever gets to your inbox. You can set these up through your web server administration access, or just ask your web master to do this for you. Be sure your email filtering settings are set up to catch any junk email that gets through your server's filters.

You may also subscribe to a third-party email filtering service. In general, setting these up is rather complex. Check with your web master or computer expert about these services. Unfortunately, none of these filtering systems are foolproof.

Challenge / Response Systems

Subscribing to a challenge/response service (such as Spam Arrest) ensures that you receive email only from people you know and you have approved. Emails from unknown senders receive an auto-reply requesting that they input some information provided in the reply—easy for people, impossible for spambots. Once senders complete this process, they are added to your approved list, and you receive their email. Depending on your business, you may be able to get away with using this system. However, if your business model encourages contact from customers or potential customers unknown to you, it could bar wanted business as well as unwanted emails.

Use Contact Forms on Your Website

If you use a contact form on your website, the email address can be embedded in the script that processes the form. This prevents the email address from being viewable, and harvestable, on the website. You may choose to use a different address for the form, such as contact123@yourdomainname.com so you can identify these contact form emails easily in your email tool. Be sure that the address is included in your address book so that it isn't blocked by filters.

Hide Your Email Address

There are many ways to hide email addresses from the spambots, though none of them is foolproof. Some ways, such as the use of images, negatively impact usability for your site's human visitors. You can also use scripting, but be sure it can be made to fit the look of your site. Currently the concept behind scripting is that it's too difficult to program spambots to figure it out—but if browsers can do it, spambots can, too.

Protect Your Email Address

Using your email address makes it available to spammers. The more you use it, the more vulnerable it becomes. Consider obtaining a free, "throw-away" email account for personal use, such as for contest entries, chat rooms, online shopping, and other non-business uses. If the free email address becomes contaminated with too much spam, toss it and get another one.

Read the privacy policy of every site you provide with your email address. If you don't like the policy, use the throw-away email, or don't do business with them at all! For every interaction that requires your email, weigh the benefits versus the potential exposure risk before proceeding.

Junk Email Handling

Despite taking all the recommended steps to bar junk email, some will still get through. How should you handle it? If possible, don't open it at all—direct it straight to your trash. NEVER reply, and never click on any links within the email. If you have the time, you can forward it to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov. Be sure to include the full email header.

About Cool Plum Design

Cool Plum Design is a full-service web design business. We work with clients throughout the United States who need to represent their business online. We offer quality, customer-focused solutions integrating design, functionality, and content.

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