SPAM - FAQ

What is SPAM? Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

Does BooNet filter SPAM from its servers?

BooNet continually monitors and edits about 50 to 80% of the SPAM hitting our servers.

Why am I receiving them?

There are 4 groups of people that typically get more SPAM than others: 

  1. People who use a Microsoft e-mail client such as Outlook, Outlook Express, or Netscape for e-mail and also browse with it are more likely to get SPAM than others. This is because depending on which web pages are visited, the page owners can and will grab your e-mail address as an available “global variable” and once they have it, they will use, mail, and/or sell your address.

  2. There are SPAM programs that target “likely” e-mail names. This is called Name Spamming. They match the common names with each domain and if the mail does not bounce from a domain, they assume that the e-mail address is valid and they sell the address.

  3. People that give out their e-mail address to online businesses can and should expect that they will be targeted for SPAM. Those names will become a valuable sales commodity for a struggling Dot.com or the company that purchases them in bankruptcy.

  4. Do not publish your main e-mail address on any web pages that are available for public viewing. You can not expect any e-mail address that becomes part of public record to remain SPAM free. SPAMMERS have harvesting programs that allow them to pull off names for sale and use.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

  1. Use an e-mail client such as Eudora that will remove your e-mail address from your browser.

  2. DO NOT, even if you can get it, use a common name such as "bob@boo.net".

  3. Don't respond! The address that it came from is probably forged. Moreover, responding might even "increase" the value of your address since your reply verifies that someone read it. Similarly, don't follow 'opt-out' instructions, as many spammers cull even more addresses from them.

  4. Maintain multiple e-mail addresses. Use alternate free addresses for participating in Bulletin Boards or recording web sites. Be careful not to mix uses, for example, don’t use a bulletin board address that you would also use for registering domain names.

How can I filter them out?

You should learn to use the filtering features of your e-mail program. Read your e-mail programs help file for more details.