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Public Knowledge Center |
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Fight Back against SPAM! 
Anyone who has ever had an email address has received “spam” - the common term for “commercial unsolicited email”.
Spam emails run the gamut from annoying offers for products that the consumer is not interested in, to offensive, pornographic, or otherwise objectionable content, to scams and outright fraud. Depending upon the extent of your email address’ inclusion on spam mailing lists, the problem might consist of only one or two of these annoying emails per day, to a constant barrage that literally clogs your email in-box.
How Do Spammers Get My Email Address?
Spammers typically purchase email lists from a “list broker”, a person or company that uses specially designed software to automatically scour the Internet and “harvest” the email addresses that it finds. Others execute “dictionary attacks” that test endless combinations of names, words, letters, and numbers in order to discover valid email addresses. If your email address appears on the Internet on a website, chat room, forum, newsgroup, directory, or other sources, it is has likely already been harvested and added to many spam email lists.
To combat spammers, many Internet Service Providers have implemented programs to significantly reduce and filter out spam emails for their customers. There are also a variety of commercially available programs that consumers can purchase that are very effective at blocking spam. The value of such a service depends upon the nature and extent of your spam problem, and no program or service is truly 100% effective.
Note: The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (or CAN-SPAM Act as it is commonly called), became effective on January 1, 2004 and established specific restrictions and requirements for senders of commercial email. Among the Act’s many provisions, it requires that the sender provide recipients with an ability to opt-out of receiving additional communications, with instructions and a link for doing so.
Report It or Delete It - But Do NOT Respond to It
If you receive an email solicitation that does not contain the required opt-out instructions, it is a safe assumption that the email is either spam or a scam. You should not respond directly to the sender of the email as doing so will only confirm that 1). the spammer has obtained a valid email address, and 2). that you are a person that responds to email solicitations.
If you reply directly via email with a request to be removed from the list, you will soon begin receiving a deluge of spam as your email address will quickly be sold to countless other spammers.
How to Report Spam and Fraudulent Emails
Reporting to the Federal Trade Commission:
The Federal Trade Commission maintains a very useful and informative website for consumers struggling with spam. The FTC allows consumers to report spam and deceptive emails, and maintains a database for cooperation with law enforcement authorities in identifying and shutting down spam and deceptive email operations. If you receive spam or deceptive emails, you can report it to the FTC by simply forwarding the entire email, including the complete email header, to the following email address: spam@uce.gov
Reporting to Your Internet Service Provider:
Most Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, endeavor to reduce the volume of spam that their subscribers receive, and also seek to minimize abuse by those who use their services to communicate with others. To accept complaints related to spam and discourage spam and abuse of others by their subscribers, ISPs maintain an email address for their customers to use in reporting spam, usually “abuse@(the ISP’s name).com” or similar address.
You can forward a copy of the complete spam email, including the email header, to your own Internet Service Provider, and also to the ISP providing service to the spammer - identified by the information after the “@” symbol in the email address. You should check with your ISP to confirm the reporting email address for spam complaints. When forwarding spam or deceptive emails, always be certain to indicate in your message subject line and in the email message itself, if any, that you are making a complaint about spam.
Reporting to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3):
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) was established as a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). It is used to receive and process online reports of actual and attempted fraud and criminal activity involving the Internet (including email scams). Complaints received are reviewed and may be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the matter. Though you should not forward general spam emails to the IC3, emails that are fraudulent in nature, such as phishing emails, may be sent.
©Copyright 2008 by Michael Barnett. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use, copying, or distribution without permission is prohibited.
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