In order that this issue is fully understood, we want to define "spam" (the Internet industry term, not the food product). Here is the definition, as taken directly from our Terms of Service. This should give you a good indication of how serious the issue is taken by Internet providers, and you surely know how annoying it can be. If you know spam, and need no introduction, here is how to avoid it.
"Spamming is the sending of unsolicited email to persons the sender does not know or have prior consent to send the message to. Using fictitious email addresses of any domain housed on our network is forbidden. Unsolicited email of any type (to email addresses or newsgroup postings) is classified as Spam.
Spam referencing sites on our servers in any manner (as originator, intermediary, destination or reply-to address) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED and your account may be terminated without notice or refund if your site is referenced in any Spam. In addition, we reserve the right to impose a minimum $100 fee for each reported unsolicited email. Additional charges may apply for administrative work or any penalties incurred by YourNew.com or it's up line providers for abusing our services.
Opt-in type mailing lists are acceptable, but must clearly contain explicit (and easy) unsubscribe instructions in each email sent to lists. All removal requests must be honored immediately (either automated or manually prior to additional mail being sent to the list).
Any violation of this policy may result in the immediate termination of your email service and/or your entire account without notice at our sole discretion. No refunds will be issued for accounts canceled for Spamming. We reserve the right to refuse or cancel service of known spammers. We will also notify any confirmed Spam to other service providers used or referenced in the transmission of such Spam."
(Top)
by Mark Aaron Murnahan, CEO
YourNew.com, Inc.
One of the best ways to avoid unwanted email marketing is to have control over your domain processing rules, or have a good host that will handle this for you. However, there are ways to avoid spam, even if you are using another domain's mail address, such as HotMail, AOL, Yahoo, etcetera. In this edition of "Mail @ YourNew.com", we will share some of the best ways to ensure that the mail that you receive is legitimate.
If you own your domain, it is very simple to use aliases whenever you give a company your email address. For example, if I want to register an email with a company, I will generally use an address with the given company name before the "@". If you set a "nobody" alias for the domain, you can make this easier by setting all mail addressed to unused mail addresses to come to the email account of your choice. This way, if the company sends you spam, or worse, sells your email address, you will know where it came from and simply deny all mail to that address (companyxyz @ yournew.com).
If you have excessive mail from a particular domain, you may choose to deny all mail from that particular domain. However, this is hard to do with domains like AOL, Yahoo, and the like. If you deny all mail from major domains like these, you could potentially lose a lot of mail that you actually wanted. In this case, the service provider will generally take measures, including account termination, to stop them from spamming you. Most companies have an address to send complaints of terms of service abuse.
Never "Reply All"
If you use the "Reply All" function of your email program, you will have just given your email to all of the recipients. This should only be reserved for cautious use within a group where you can be assured that they will not send that particular message to anybody else. This also applies to "Forward" and "CC", especially the dreaded blue sky messages of easy money, or those begging for your observance of a superstition. If you just have to get the message out to a group, use the "BCC" (blind courtesy copy) function.
MOST IMPORTANTLY
Never "unsubscribe"! Let's look at this logically. If somebody is disrespectful enough to send you unsolicited bulk email, do you really want to draw attention from them? In fact, most bulk mailing organizations take their list of "unsubscribers" straight to the market. After all, if you "unsubscribed", you obviously hold an active email account, and you just proved that you saw their mail.
We at YourNew.com seldom publish stories from outside sources, but the story to the right was so appropriate to this issue that we decided to share it with you. In addition to the measures listed in this article, we would also like to add that the use of Cold Fusion and ASP are also very viable replacements for the CGI mentioned in the article.
If you have questions, or need help, feel free to contact us. If you wish to send junk mail to sell us your digital cameras or miracle thigh cream, please do not bother.
(Top) |
by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
What's one spider you DON'T want on your site? An email spider that visits with one purpose in mind: collect as many email addresses as possible so the owner can spam you with email later. Learn how to keep your email address available to humans but invisible to email spiders.
All Email Isn't Spam
Opt-in email is mail that you either requested or agreed to receive. Think about online newsletters you subscribe to, emails from companies with whom you do business, breaking news emails from CNN.com, or personal email from family and friends. That's legitimate email.
Opt-out email is completely unsolicited mail that appears in your inbox offering you "services" like university diplomas, easy credit, or mail order medicines guaranteed to jump start your personal life. To get off these lists, you have to petition the sender to remove you, hence the term "Opt-out." Of course, sometimes even that doesn't work: it just tells the spammer that your email address is valid.
Many people wonder how they possibly get on these lists. Often, the culprit is an email spider that ignores robots.txt files. They crawl through message boards, Web sites, and any online forum that might contain email addresses. The spiders search the Web until they have extracted a certain number of email addresses. Then they triumphantly crawl back to their evil masters with a list of victims.
Don't Be An Email Spider Victim
Before you know it, your inbox is flooded with spam email and you're spending valuable time sorting out the junk mail from legitimate email. That's time you could be spending promoting your site or providing service to your real customers.
Many people protect their personal email by maintaining at least two email addresses: one that only friends and family have and another email address used for online orders or message boards posts. Online services (like Yahoo Mail and Hotmail) that offer free email addresses make that easy to do.
The email addresses on your Web site are more problematic. You can password-protect your site, but that option keeps out both human visitors (including directory editors) and all spiders (not just email spiders). The human editors at Web directories expect to see contact information on the site's home page. Other visitors expect it too.
The trick is keeping the lines of communication open to human visitors, but closed to email spiders. Here are three reliable methods. Select the one that fits your level of Web and programming expertise.
1. Use Special HTML Characters
This is the easiest way to thwart the email spiders, but it's also the easiest method for the spiders to detect and compensate for: simply use the "@" character in place of the @ sign in your email addresses.
Put it in your code inside a link or just as a text email address:
Link: <a href="mailto:news@ netmechanic.com">Email Us!</a>
Text email: Email us at: news@netmechanic.com
Since the HTML code doesn't look like a proper email address, the email spider doesn't harvest it. But the browser understands the code and displays it on the page properly. Visitors will be able to send you mail from the linked address if they have their mail client configured to do so. Otherwise, they can cut and paste from your Web page into their mail client to email you.
2. Hide Email Addresses With JavaScript
The special HTML character alone may not do the trick though. Before long, email spiders may be configured to look for it and replace it with the @ symbol. Then you're back with a full inbox of unwanted mail.
So consider using JavaScript to parse the email address components. Be sure to change the variable names to reflect your site and email address! Also, remember to keep the document.write statement on one line in your HTML code to avoid getting a JavaScript error message on your Web page.
Place the script in the BODY section of your document. We've included the code in this newsletter story here:
Send your comments and questions to our
This works great if you only have a couple of email addresses on your page. A long list of contacts is harder to easily manage and maintain. But including the script for all your email addresses probably takes less time than wading through hundreds of spam email messages!
3. Use A Comment Form With CGI Script
Installing a CGI script isn't difficult, but seems intimidating to many novice webmasters. If you can get over that fear though, a CGI form processing script is a foolproof way to ward off email spiders. It's also easier to maintain in the long run because you don't have to change a lot of JavaScript variable names when you need to update addresses.
Note that we use one for newsletter comments. When a visitor clicks on the author's name at the beginning of the story, the link opens a new browser window with a comment form. This hides the email address from email spiders, but still allows visitors to send questions and comments.
Most Web hosts have a set of common CGI scripts for their customers to use. If not, you can easily search the Web for free CGI form processing scripts. It's safer to use your host's scripts or a remotely hosted CGI script though, because poorly written CGI scripts can get you into trouble with your neighbors who share server space with you.
If your host doesn't give you access to CGI scripts or to your own CGI bin, then consider moving your site to a new host who does.
Make Time For Customer Queries
Before you use our handy comment form to complain, let us stress that NetMechanic isn't criticizing all forms of marketing email!
Unscrupulous email marketers who use email spiders to collect thousands of email addresses to send bulk email to disinterested, unsuspecting parties are the issue here. They waste your time and clog up mail delivery systems - slowing all email. Hiding your email address from spiders helps you respond to visitor and customer queries more quickly because you don't waste time separating them from the garbage email.
Your customers and site visitors need to communicate with you. Spam emailers do not.
(Top) |
Home
