Question: How do I keep spammers from getting my email address?

Every day I get ten pieces of spam, and it is driving me up a wall! What can I do to keep from getting spam?

Answer

First of all, if you're only getting ten pieces of spam per day, you should consider yourself fortunate! There are people out there suffering far worse. I have one email address on which I receive 33.6 spams per day. And there are others who are even worse off than me.

But what to do? Well, if you're already getting spam, there's not a lot you can do about it. But if you are thinking about changing your email address (and by the way, you should consider the pros and cons of changing your email address before you do it) then you need to make sure you protect the privacy of your new email address. Here are just a few tips:

• Never post your email address on an internet website. If you join a community forum, keep your email address hidden. This is where automated email harvesters and email sniffers get most of their addresses.


• If you are a webmaster, and have to have an email address posted on your website, don't use your new address. Get a free yahoo or hotmail address just for that purpose.


• When you notify all your friends and family of your new address, make it very clear to them that you do not want to receive any email forwards on your new address, as these forwards often end up in the hands of spammers, who harvest hundreds of email addresses from the email headers.

And good luck to you! The fight against spam is a daunting one.