SPAM (junk) Email
How can you lessen the amount of SPAM you receive?
SPAM (unsolicited email) can be extremely annoying and fill up your inbox. We try very hard to keep spam out of our customers' mailboxes because it wastes bandwidth, disk space, and it frustrates, and it makes you less happy about our service.
NTD Athenet uses a complicated filtering system to determine what messages are SPAM and to keep them out of your inbox. More specifically, we have implemented several policies to discourage spammers from using our facilities and to protect our users against spam messages:
- We filter against known spam addresses.
- We disable spammers immediately.
- We monitor traffic patterns. If an address fits a pattern we associate with spammers, we investigate.
- We pay attention to complaints about our addresses.
- We do not relay messages.
- We also encourage other sites to implement similar policies.
While this may eliminate 80-90% of unwanted email, no such computerized system can be 100% effective. In order to prevent messages you do want from being removed, some junk mail will still get through. Below we have provided some suggestions on how you can lessen/manage the amount of spam you might receive.
- When setting up an email account, choose a username that is not a proper name like "susan" and is not a word that would be found in a dictionary like "walnut". Many spammers simply generate a random list of email addresses where the username is a proper name and/or a word found in a dictionary. Use your initials or something totally obscure for your username. For example: john@athenet.net or walnut@athenet.net would be poor choices; fwt@athenet.net or xi95le4@athenet.net would be good choices.
- Do not reply to spam unless it is from a company you have dealt with before, even to ask to be removed from their mailing list. Responding to spam confirms to the spammer that your email address is valid and will often only serve to increase the amount of junk mail you receive.
- Some email programs have the ability to filter (that is, redirect) certain email and send it directly to your trash/deleted folder. Outlook from Microsoft is an example of an email program that can do this. Please understand, however, that spam filters aren’t perfect and some spam will end up in your Inbox anyway. Also, some emails that aren't spam may be treated as such by a filter. It is a good idea to filter spam into its own folder so you can review it periodically to ensure you aren't missing emails that you do wish to read.
- Try not to fill out forms on the Internet that require your email address. Once you've left your email address on the Internet, you can never be sure whose hands it will end up in. Read the Privacy Statement/Policy of the site asking for your email address. If it doesn't state in plain English what they will or will not do with your personal information or if there is no Privacy Policy, you probably don't want to give them your email address.
- There are websites on the Internet you can web browse from that hide your identity and/or allow you to create email addresses that hide your true email address. An example is http://www.virtualbrowser.com.
- If you must use your email address over the Internet, setup a free email account at Yahoo, Hotmail or Lycos and use that email address instead of your @athena.net email address.
- You can report offending spam at www.mail-abuse.org.
- Finally, if you have followed these guidelines and are still unhappy with the amount of spam you are receiving, or if you just want to make a fresh start, you always have the option of changing your email address. This can be done quickly and easily by contacting our NTD Athenet Help Desk at 920-954-9799 or 888-919-8700.
For more information about SPAM, see cauce.org
updated 10/29/03