Spam is a commonly used name for “Unsolicited Commercial Email” (UCE). Most people refer to it as junk mail. There hardly is a person who likes receiving spam, however, almost every email account holder has received unwanted messages. Spam clogs our inboxes, it becomes obtrusive, it wastes our time and, eventually, our money, and very often it is the source of viruses and worms in our computers.

According to statistics, spam makes up 40 percent of all email received. 12.4 billion spam letters are sent daily. What is the source and purpose of spam? As follows from its “official” name, spam usually contains different kinds of commercial advertisements. In the US financial service ads are more common and they usually include offers for home equity loans, mortgage services etc. Other offers usually found in spam messages are connected with health services and drugs, business supplies (like printer cartridges), and other smaller merchandise (electronics, software etc.) Companies, which run their businesses through Internet, tend to distinguish between spam and targeted ads they send out. In their opinion, the email services you can opt-out anytime should not be considered as spam, even if the messages contain ads for products or services you have not asked for. Market researches regard email an important and effective promotional method. They also suggest that companies make their email messages more targeted and adjusted to each potential customer’s needs.

Where do spammers get email addresses? Most of the time we provide them with our email addresses while signing up for services or buying something online. We usually forget to uncheck the box “tell me about the latest updates” or something akin to that at the bottom of the page. As a result, our mailbox gets stuffed with dozens of annoying ads without our consent. Email addresses get sold; random addresses may also be generated electronically. When you answer this email the spammer will know that this email account not only exists, but also is active.

Another kind of spam are potentially dangerous messages, containing viruses or pornography. The latter received its special name “sporn”. Often you won’t find the sender’s address in the “From” line of this kind of messages. However, some web-sites describe methods of how to track down the aggressive spammer (for example, http://spam-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/reporting-spam.html). Virtually, one can make a complaint about a spammer, but practically it becomes very complicated to trace the one, and also local ISPs, which provide spammers with Internet access, are usually reluctant of actively reacting to these cases, unless they have a large volume of complaints related to one particular IP address.

Whatever may be the content of the spam messages, everybody hates spam. Here are some advices of how avoid spam doing harm to your computer:

1. Don’t answer spam emails;
2. Don’t ask to unsubscribe;
3. Be aware of “false Friendlies”, meaning messages from “Dad”, “Administrator” etc;
4. Don’t post your email address;
5. Use a fake email address if the web-site doesn’t have a Privacy Policy, or if you don’t trust the site;
6. Make your email address cryptic;
7. Install spam-filtering software.

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