Nowadays, spam is more than just an irritating flood unwanted email. It is also a means by which spammers can transmit viruses, spyware and adware to your computer. An anti-spam filter is essential to minimizing this potential risk. It will also stem the flow of spam into your inbox.

What is an anti-spam filter?

An anti-spam filter is a program designed to detect and block unsolicited bulk email. It works by scanning any incoming email for words, phrases, html code and other spammer tactics to determine whether an email is spam or not. It does this based on probability formulas that calculate the likelihood that an email that has certain words is spam.

It will also create black lists and white lists. The blacklist will store email from unknown ISP and email addresses or ISP addresses; the whitelist will hold email that is sent from pre-approved sources. The filter software will also keep these lists up to date. Whenever the filter detects that an incoming email is spam, its address is added to the blacklist. Whenever the sender or recipient confirms an email as trusted and legitimate, it will be added to the white list. Most of the “sporm” (spam pornography) will be filtered out as well as any email that it detects has adult content.

What Should You Look for in Anti-spam Filter Software?

Here are other important features you should take into consideration:

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about Spam Protection. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

- Make sure the anti-spam filter software is compatible with your particular email service. Do not take it for granted that it will work with what you have.

- It is important that the software program is easy for you to use and navigate. Anti-spam software is worthless if you can’t figure out how to use it or if it has features you do not understand.

- The features and tools the software offers should enable you to customize the program to suit your own needs. It should be flexible in letting you set your own rules regarding which email to permit into your inbox and what you want to filter out or block.

- Ideally, it should enable you to set up whitelist, which will indicate particular email and ISP addresses that should always be delivered to the inbox. This will ensure that legitimate email from trusted sources will never be filtered out or accidentally deleted.

- The software should install with ease, with zero or minimal errors encountered during set up. Some anti-spam software requires registration, additional downloads or other steps to be taken before it can be used.

- The software you choose should be stable in its release and workings. One way to check this is to look at the release package and view what the programmers or company states is the last stable release. It is probably not in your interests to buy software that is still in the beta phase, particularly if you are not familiar with the program.

Spam is irritating at best, and maliciously destructive at worst. Buying the right anti-spam software will go a long way toward protecting you from the spammers of the world.

As your knowledge about Spam Protection continues to grow, you will begin to see how Spam Protection fits into the overall scheme of things. Knowing how something relates to the rest of the world is important too.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Would you like to find out what those-in-the-know have to say about Spam Protection? The information in the article below comes straight from well-informed experts with special knowledge about Spam Protection.

Spam has become an ever-increasing problem in recent years, costing legitimate businesses a great deal in both time and money.

In response to the growing threat from spam, new legislation was enacted in 2003. it was called: Controlling the Assault of Non Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM act). This act created some requirements for all companies who are sending bulk commercial email, as well as those companies whose products are offered for sale in the spam emails. It also instituted penalties for violators, as well as giving the client or consumer the right and the means to request that the emailers cease the spam efforts.

CAN-SPAM was enacted in January, 2004. The act covers any email which have as its purpose advertising or promotional efforts for any service or product, including those whose contents reside solely on a web site.

The legislation also covers “transactional or relationship messages,” meaning those emails which help a web site to deal with any transaction, even those which are agreed on, or make updates to any customer whether new or exisiting. None of these may contain false or spoofed routing information.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the United States agency for consumer protection, was granted the authority to enforce the act and the DOJ, or Department of Justice is additionally charged with the enforcement of the CAN SPAM act. It also provides that Internet Service Providers who are hurt by the spam may in fact sue the violators of the legislation to recoup losses to their own business.

Other Major Provisions of the Law

-It bans any attempt to falsify the information in the header or subject line.

If you find yourself confused by what you’ve read to this point, don’t despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.

These must correctly identify what the message is about, and accurately display routing information as well as “To” and “from” information. The email must accurately indicate the identity of the sender and recipient. It must accurately portray the domain from which the email originates as well as the senders real email address.

- It bans misleading subject lines

The subject line must not mislead the recipient to open the email under false pretenses. It should clearly indicate the actual subject matter of the email.

- Emails sent in this fashion must offer the recipient a legitimate means to get out of receiving the commercial email in the future. Any such requests to opt-out must be honored by the spamming company, and the email address deleted from its sending list. The commercial emailer will have 10 days to after the request to cease sending messages to that address

- Commercial bulk email should easily be identified as an advertisement or solicitation. It must also include the sender’s actual physical postal address

- The recipient must be fore-warned of any sexually explicit information the email may contain. This warning must be displayed in the email’s subject line.

Each and every violation of this law or the aspects of the law subjects the sender to strict fines that can go as high as $10,000 per incident and, for certain violations, the commercial emailer will face possible jail time.

Another legal initiative aimed at fighting spam is the “Digital PhishNet” (DPN), which was established in 2004. It is a collaborative effort between the Internet industry and criminal law enforcement. Its purpose is to identify and to prosecute spammers who break the law through phishing. Online auction sites, financial institutions, ISPs and other groups within the industry are all involved in this imitative. Important data and information is forwarded in real time to law enforcement.

You can’t predict when knowing something extra about Spam Protection will come in handy. If you learned anything new about Spam Protection in this article, you should file the article where you can find it again.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

If you have even a passing interest in the topic of Spam Protection, then you should take a look at the following information. This enlightening article presents some of the latest news on the subject of Spam Protection.

Spam was once just clutter in your inbox; now it is a commonly used vehicle for fraud, electronic crime and even corporate espionage. The 4 Ws of spam answer the most commonly asked questions about spam.

What is Spam?

Spam, also called junk email, is generally defined in the Internet industry as unsolicited commercial email (UCE). It is email that is sent out in bulk to a huge number of recipients who did not request it. The contents of spam range from benign advertising to malicious programs that can literally hijack your computer system do grave damage.

The most common commercial spam advertises pyramid schemes, pornographic web sites, mortgage loans, chain letters, credit repair, fraudulent pharmaceuticals and illegally pirated software. The more dangerous spam will often contain viruses that can infect your computer, Trojan horses that can hijack your email program and use it to send out spam to your friends and family, and phishing scams that attempt to get your personal and financial information.

Who Spams?

“Spammer” is the term used to refer to those responsible for spam. In the Spam world, there are two types of spammers. There are the honest spammers who comply with the anti-spam laws, and have the consent of the spam recipients. These willing recipients usually join the honest spammer’s “opt-in” mailing list by signing up at a website, for example to enter a lottery, or to be notified of future promotions.
Then there are the dishonest spammers, who will get your email addresses by any means possible. They use their spam for criminal or malicious purposes and have zero regard for the law.
Spammers range from the lone, home-based individual to multi-million dollar companies with several employees. Most of the spam companies are increasingly relocating to offshore locations to evade US laws and law enforcement.

Most of this information comes straight from the Spam Protection pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.

Where do the Spammers Get your Email Address From?

Spammers get their victim’s email addresses from just about anywhere you can imagine. Primarily, they use Newsgroup harvesters and Spambots, which are automated programs designed to “harvest” (extract) email addresses from online sites. Newsgroup harvesters target newsgroup postings and other unprotected web-based forums, which tend to have low security. Spambots troll the Internet, scanning websites and “harvesting” (extracting) email addresses. It typically searches for the “@” sign that denotes an email address.

The average spambot can harvest over 30,000 email addresses in just one hour. And this goes on 24/7, year and year out.
There are also companies that sell CDs that are packed with valid email addresses. These can sell for as little as $25, and they are a goldmine for any spammer.

Why do Spammers Spam?

In a word? Money. Spammers literally make millions from their illicit trade. Studies show that for every million junk emails sent out, a spammer will average about 100 sales. Add to this the fact that they make $50-$100 in commission for each sale, and you can see how the numbers add up to incomes in excess of $100,000 a year! What’s more, spamming can cost next to nothing.

But why does spamming continue despite its cost in time, effort and money? Because there are people out there who respond to spam. Even with a minimal response rate of one sale from every 10,000 emails, it can be highly profitable. If no one responded to spam, the spammer’s cash cow would starve and the practice would end. It is these few who keep the spammers in business. They make the cost of spamming worthwhile.

That’s the latest from the Spam Protection authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

In the race to provide the best anti-spam system to fight the ever-growing threat of spam email, there are a few which stand out among the for-pay software systems. Some are software programs, while others are web-based systems that function by sending your email through their service before it gets to you. The web-based filter has the added benefit of not permitting spam to get through to your system, in the first place; on the other hand, if valid email is filtered out and isn’t spam, its difficult to recover it.

Here are reviews of top-rated spam filters

Mailwasher:

The Mailwasher spam filter is a very efficient and secure spam filtering tool. It combines a number of different techniques to detect and delete spam before it gets to your inbox, as well as protecting your computer from viruses. These techniques include: using statistics, blacklisting and white-listing, databases and advanced learning filtration.
Mail Washer supports IMAP and POP accounts, as well as MSN, AOL and Hotmail. However, it does not offer IMAP or POP proxy filtering.
This spam filter takes a bit of time to “learn” what you think is spam, and in time will be highly efficient in its spam filtration.

Only My Email:

Is on an online web based filtration system, so there is no software to download or install. Because it is not downloaded to your computer itself, the spam filtering operations will never affect your computer’s performance. Your email is filtered prior to coming to your computer and the spam will never be downloaded to your personal machine. You also get a daily spam report.

So far, we’ve uncovered some interesting facts about Spam Protection. You may decide that the following information is even more interesting.

Only My Email is an extremely accurate anti-spam filter. It is capable of filtering up to three IMAP or POP email accounts.

Cloudmark Desktop:

This is a great, easy to use anti-spam filter. It is a plug-in for Outlook and Outlook Express. This software is highly accurate, with a great spam detection rate and relatively low false positives.

Cloudmark Desktop uses a database of spammers to identify and filter out spam. This database is updated by the community of over a million Cloudmark users. For example, when you identify a message as spam, it is automatically deleted from other Cloudmark users’ inboxes as well. Phishing spam faces the same fate. This spam filter deletes spam immediately or moves it into a dedicated folder for further action from you or later deletion.
Cloudmark Desktop is a subscription service that needs to be renewed annually. There are still some areas in which improvement is needed such as in the case of false positive spam removal, but all in all, it is a great spam and phishing email solution.

CA Anti-spam

Previously known as eTrust Anti-Spam, this software is a whitelist spam filter. This means that it will only permit mail from those you have added to your whitelist and will quarantine all other emails. Once approved, messages from a previously quarantined sender will be moved to your inbox. It also updates your whitelist by scanning you outgoing email.

While CA Anti-spam works well for those who receive only mail from those they know, but may not be practical for those who receive large volumes of email from several legitimate but unknown sources.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit my latest acquisition: Adsense Sites and make sure to download the free adsense sites package!

The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Spam Protection.

A spam blocker is one way you can effectively cope with the deluge of spam that is targeted at your inbox each day. This type of anti-spam software works by blocking any unsolicited email from getting to your inbox. It is generally about 90% effective in blocking this spam, along with any viruses and other malicious code that may come with it.

The spam blocker differs from a spam filter in that its function is specifically to block most of the incoming spam. The spam filter works by organizing email that it identifies as spam into folders, and leaves it to you to take further action on. The spam blocker, on the other hand, is specifically programmed to prevent spam from getting through. With a spam blocker, you do not have to deal with the spam it detects and blocks.

So How Does a Spam Blocker Work?

The spam blocker will log into your mail server email account every 10 minutes, inspecting it for spam email. It immediately destroys any viruses, and gets rid of any obvious spam such as email that contains adult or pornographic material. Undesirable email is flagged and then redirected to a folder specifically for spam. You will have an opportunity to sort through this spam folder to verify that no legitimate email is mistakenly diverted there. Any email that it is on your white-list or which it determines as legit will be left on the server to be downloaded as normal.

If an email is from an unknown source and the spam blocker cannot clearly categorize it as either legitimate or spam, it is quarantined in a specific folder until you either move it or delete it. The quarantined spam is usually held in this folder for up to 30 days, or until you take action on it. The spam blocker keeps track of the particular action you take on each quarantined email e.g. if you delete the email. It will “remember” this action and use it to create a new filtering rule that it will apply to future incoming email.

Hopefully the information presented so far has been applicable. You might also want to consider the following:

What are the Benefits of a Spam Blocker?

- A spam blocker frees up storage space. Most mailboxes have a very limited capacity to store email. Spam takes up space, and a spam blocker generally prevents large files from making it into your main folder.

- By blocking spam rather than just filtering it, the spam blocker helps minimize the amount of time you have to personally sort through your spam email.

- Because this anti-spam software deletes spam, it drastically lowers the risk of a computer virus infecting your system.

- Many spam blockers are available online for immediate download, are usually very easy to install and generally do not require further configuration..

Many email services offer spam blocker software. If, however, you choose to buy your own, make sure you get one that is compatible with your service. Also take into account the level of blockage it offers as well as flexibility it offers in letting you customize the settings to your own preferences.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit my latest acquisition: Adsense Sites and make sure to download the free adsense sites package!

It has become increasingly common for spam to contain malicious programs or software that can be harmful to both your computer. The purpose of these small, malicious is to perform unauthorized, usually harmful, actions, when they self-install into your computer system, and infect your programs and files. They are commonly spread by e-mail, in the form of cleverly disguised attachments that trick you into clicking on them.

The most common of these programs are: Viruses, Trojan Horses, Malware and Adware. Knowing what they are and how they work will help you better protect yourself from malicious spam.

Viruses

A is a computer program that is specifically created to replicate itself and to infect a computer system without permission or even knowledge of the user. Viruses come in several varieties including:

The Boot Sector Virus

This virus will infect the root-most part of your computer hard drive, called the boot sector. This is what is used to start up your computer.

This type virus can prevent your computer from starting and may even force a hard drive format, causing you to lose all of the information on your computer in one fell swoop.

The Program Virus

This is an executable file. It becomes active when the program it has infected is run. When it is activated, it will infect other programs on your hard drive, disabling them.

The Macro Virus

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Spam Protection story from informed sources.

The third type of virus specifically targets documents such as Microsoft word. It is activated when the infected document it has infected is run. One action it may perform, for example, is to erase dates in your documents as well as other areas of the computer.

Malware

The term “malware” is short for malicious software. It is a type of program that propagates on your hard drive and can create untold problems when it does so. Malware may install a program that you did not want, or ask for. When it does so, it will use up many of your computer’s system resources, effectively slowing it to a near standstill.

Trojan Horse

Much like its Greek namesake, the Trojan horse program is a seemingly harmless and innocuous application or file, but it contains harmful, malicious code and, when installed, can wreak havoc on your computer system. This program often runs undetected, giving the hacker access to your computer system and, for example, your personal information such as saved passwords and bank account numbers. The hacker is also able to display messages on your computer screen.

Adware

While not necessarily malware, but adware can be used for malicious purposes. Adware goes above and beyond what is reasonable advertising. It is adware, in fact what has given a bad name to some otherwise incredible free software that may actually be very beneficial to you.

It generates popups or other annoying advertising that can in fact freeze or lock your computer. In many cases, the adware is difficult if not impossible for the regular user to remove, disable or even detect.

In addition to displaying ads for the original advertiser, adware may log your whereabouts on the internet and send user information back to the spammy ad company about your computer use without asking for your permission to do so.

Spam is not always the most harmful thing you will find in your inbox; it is the attachments that come with spam that can really devastate your computer system. It is crucial that you do not open attachments in unsolicited email.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, who just launched this great product..
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Whitelists are quite possibly the single most effective form of spam protection available on the market today. They are as close as you can get to totally eliminating spam from your inbox.

A whitelist is a database of trusted email addresses, IP addresses and domains. To build the list, each one of these trusted sources is manually added to the whitelist. Only email from a whitelisted source is delivered to the user’s inbox. In fact, whitelists are so effective, that the catch-rate for spam is almost 100%.

However, the efficiency of whitelists comes at a price, because it produces a large number of false positives. This means that a lot of legitimate email goes undelivered. To deal with this problem, a challenge-response technique is often instituted.

When an email from an unknown source is received, the system will respond automatically, sending a “challenge” back to the sender. This challenge may require the sender to answer certain questions, or decipher an image that displays a series of letters and numbers. This image can only be deciphered by a human, and not by spamming software. Once this is successfully done, the email is allowed to go through the system to the inbox. The sender is also added to the whitelist. The challenge-response methodology uses a combination of human judgment and software technology to determine which email to let through and which to block.

See how much you can learn about Spam Protection when you take a little time to read a well-researched article? Don’t miss out on the rest of this great information.

The advantage of this method is that it is not worth it to spammers to wade through all the challenge-response emails and respond to them. They are more likely to remove the email address from their lists and go after other addresses that do not have such requirements. However, the inconvenience of having to register to send email to the whitelist user may discourage legitimate email senders from following through.

Another impractical aspect of whitelists arises when the email account user places an online order, registers for a newsletter or other service. Each of these new email sources must be manually added to the white list. If the user forgets to do this, or enters it incorrectly, important email may be blocked.

Whitelists are far more effective than anti-spam filters, because the latter work by calculating the probability that if an email contains particular words, it is likely to be spam. However, spammers easily get around this feature simply by misspelling words, or by avoiding words associated with spam. For this reason, spam filters are usually only 80-90% successful. This may be acceptable on a personal account, but not on a business account that likely receives over a hundred emails a day.

Whitelists are especially beneficial to businesses as they almost totally eliminate the waste of valuable time that would otherwise be spent wading through the hundreds of spam that are received each day. However, despite their effectiveness in blocking spam, whitelists have not gained widespread use because of the high rate of false positives. It is also virtually impossible for businesses to compile an exhaustive whitelist database of trusted email sources.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, who just launched this great product..
- Are you looking to get traffic to your website? Introducing… Free Google Traffic System!!

When you think about Spam Protection, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Spam Protection are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

There are several myths and misconceptions that abound when it comes to Phishing. These are the top 5 most common ones:

Myth #1

Anti-spam software can detect phishing email

While anti-phishing and spam filters can decrease the number of phising emails that get into your inbox, they are not 100% effective. Whenever anti-phishing technology keeps improving, the phishers are always devising ways to get around them. It truly is a cat-and-mouse game.

Secondly, because spam email and phishing email are different (phishing email spoofs a legitimate business), a different set of rules and criteria are required to detect the phisher.

Myth #2

As long as I don’t give my password and user-name, I won’t be Phished

Phishers are getting increasingly sophisticated. They now employ several variations on the original spoofed email that once requested your password and user-name.

They will, for example, instruct you to click on a link so as to update your information at a website. If you do click on the link, malware such as a keylogger or syware wil be downloaded to your computer.
The link may take you to a spoofed website, but it may also link you to the actual website of the legitimate business. Once there, a pop-up or overlay is activated, directing you to log in. You will probably be unaware that your access information has been compromised.

Myth #3

Truthfully, the only difference between you and Spam Protection experts is time. If you’ll invest a little more time in reading, you’ll be that much nearer to expert status when it comes to Spam Protection.

Most Phishing attacks originate from outside

With all the time and effort that has been poured into the Nigerian 419 spam scams, it is commonly assumed that phishing originates from emerging countries outside America. However, a study by Symantec shows that the majority of phishing attacks actually originate within the U.S.

Myth #4

Phishing is a problem that we can solve by educating users

This is not true. There are various ways the phisher can camouflage an IP address. In fact, a large proportion of phishing attacks are enabled through common misconfigurations in a web application. Phishers can manipulate internet technology to redirect you from a real and legitimate website, in such a way that although the original web address points to this real web site you are taken to the phisher’s web site.

As the incidents of phishing and identity theft have increased, people have become more aware, and better able to identify phishing emails. The percentage of phishing victims has gone down. However, even though users are getting better educated and informed about phishing, there is always still a chance that someone will mistake a well-crafted phishing email for the real thing.

Myth #5

I will know one when I see one

This is another misconception regarding phishing, and a potentially dangerous one at that, especially in our digital world. With all the time, talent and technology available to them, these cyber crooks have more than ample resources to create and execute increasingly realistic email spam, web site spoofs or other electronic means by which to scam you out of your confidential financial data and wreak havoc on your financial affairs.

Vigilance is, in fact, your number one protection against the phisher’s hook. Underestimating the phishers may cost you.

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By Anders Eriksson, who just launched this great product..
- Do you want to make Your PDF files viral? Use This Secret Viral PDF Rebrander: Viral PDF

It is virtually impossible to avoid having your email address end up on a spammer’s mailing list. You can, however, take steps to minimize the amount of spam that you receive. Here are to top five:

Address Munging

Never, ever post your permanent email address publicly online. Posting it on a website, on USENET, or in a guest book, for example, virtually guarantees that it will end up on a spammer’s emailing list.

If you absolutely have to supply an address, or regularly participate in online forums but do not want further communication, camouflage your address in some way. You can, for example, disguise your address by writing it in such a way that humans can read it, but the spammers automated programs cannot.

Example: instead of JaneDoe@ISP.com, add a blank space before and after the “@” sign, or use characters e.g. JaneDoe at ISP dot com.

This is reffered to as “address munging”. While address munging does not allow for a regular, clickable email link, anyone who really wants to contact you will figure it out the proper address.

If you have a website, provide a feedback form instead of giving your email address.

Sign up for an Alternative Email Addresses

Do not use your primary email address when placing an online order, getting a free download, or want to sign up for a newsletter or free service Get a secondary email address that you can use in these instances. You can open a free email account for this purpose. Email providers such as GMail and yahoo offer this free email service.

It seems like new information is discovered about something every day. And the topic of Spam Protection is no exception. Keep reading to get more fresh news about Spam Protection.

Reserve this email address specifically for this online activity – do not offer it to people from whom you want to receive email, as this will likely be lost in the deluge of junk mail.

Also, be sure to log into this account on a regular basis to delete the junk mail and avoid having the account closed. If you get over-spammed, just close this account and open a new one.

Choose an email address that cannot be easily guessed at. One method used by spammers to get email address is to generate a list of likely email addresses based on a combination of first names, last names and commonly used words. They may, for example build an emailing list that has variations of an address like JoelDoe1@hotmail.com, JoelDoe2@hotmail.com etc.
You can foil this spammer’s tactic by using a relatively long email address, for example 8 or more characters long. You should also avoid choosing email addresses that include either of your names. Use your initials instead, in combination with numbers, e.g. jtd1509@yahoo.com.

Beware the Phisher Spam

Phishing is a tactic used by spammers to scam you into giving up vital personal and financial information. Its sole purpose is identity theft.

Never divulge any personal or financial information that is requested in an email. Your bank or credit card company would never ask you to confirm or update your personal information via an email or a link in an email. Any such emails should be reported to the bank or credit card company. Never, ever click on any links in this type of spam.

Get a spam filter or spam blocker

Stop the spam dead in its tracks before it ever makes it into your inbox. Well, most of it at least. Though they are not 100% effective, anti-spam software will keep most of it out. Even if you only use the internet a spam filter will help protect you from spam.

That’s the latest from the Spam Protection authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.

About the Author
Have you downloaded Anders’ latest information for adsense publishers yet? Download these new fresh sites from this all new website, called Adsense Ready Sites

Spam is commercial email that is sent out in bulk to millions of people without their consent. It is may contain advertising messages for regular products and services but increasingly, it is email of an inappropriate, offensive or malicious nature.

Today, many children have an email address that they use to email their friends, submit homework, etc. It is a fun, inexpensive and instant way to keep in touch. However, as the volume of spam keeps rising, the need to protect children from the dangers of spam is a growing concern.

Like all other Internet users, children are just as susceptible to receiving spam as are adults. And because spam is an equal opportunity menace, kids are just as likely to receive spam that contains adult and pornographic material. While there is really no way to totally eliminate the possibility of your kids receiving spam, there are steps you can take to minimize it. Here are a few:

Here are a few tips to help protect your kids from spam

Email Filters

Your email service comes with email filters built in. You can use these to filter your child’s email into specific folders, and filter spam into the trash folder. This involves setting up rules that your email program will follow in determining what action to take on incoming messages: to let it through to the inbox, send it to trash or to block the sender.

Your email spam filter program will apply these rules based on certain words in the subject line or body of the email. For example, if an email contains the word “viagra,” it will be sent directly to the trash and the sender blocked.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Spam Protection story from informed sources.

Spam Blocker

Your email service may also come with a spam blocker. If it does not, it may be worth your while to invest in one for your child’s computer. Where-as your email filter filters incoming email into folders, the spam blocker blocks spam from going through the system. It checks your mail server every 10 minutes, where it deletes the spam and destroys any viruses it finds. Legitimate email is let on the server and downloads to the inbox when you log in.

Whitelists

Set up an email account for your child that “whitelists” only specific email addresses. A whitelist is just a list of trusted and approved email addresses. For example, you can have the addresses of your child’s grandparents, aunts and uncles whitelisted. Whenever email is received from any of the whitelisted addresses, it goes directly to your child’s inbox. All other email addresses are blocked.

Monitor, Monitor, Monitor

Be sure to log into your child’s email account on a regular basis to monitor the incoming and outgoing messages, and to ensure that the spam filter and spam block are working appropriately.
Using your email spam filter, you can set up a rule that will ensure that a copy of every email that is sent and received on your child’s account is forwarded to your own email address

It is very important to educate your children on the dangers of spam and how to handle it if they do receive any in their inbox.

About the Author
Have you visited Anders’ latest site for adsense publishers? Download new fresh sites in this all new site, called Adsense Ready Websites