Let your web hosting provider protect your inbox from trick or treats.

With a little help from your web hosting provider, your October email inbox will feature substantially more treats than tricks. Remember when it used to be fun to hear the words “you’ve got mail?” These days those three little words are not nearly as appealing because spam (the epitome of trickery) jams our boxes, wreaks havoc on productivity and makes otherwise sane people seriously consider taking a pick ax to their computers. A good web host can help protect ecommerce owners from unwanted spam, as well as help you avoid the unthinkable nightmare of inadvertently sending it to your customers.

Studies conducted earlier this year revealed that unsolicited junk mail (spam) accounts for roughly half of all email messages received. The avalanche of spam has reached a point where many users are expressing a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of email transmissions and heightened concern over the spread of computer viruses and email messages. Ferris research estimates that the cost of spam to the United States is more than 10 billion per year. That figure takes into account the consumption of computer resources, help desk personnel time, and worker productivity. Every responsible ecommerce owner has to be proactive in the battle against spam to protect their customers. Your web host can show you how.

It’s not just the rising volume of spam that’s a problem, but the size of spam messages. Because botnets use stolen bandwidth, spammers can send files of any size at no cost. This is creating serious problems in the email infrastructure of many businesses. Spam can be used to spread computer viruses, trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft or fee fraud. For many people, the most alarming spam messages are those emails that resemble “legitimate” web sites, such as your bank or eBay, with the hope that you will be fooled. Unfortunately millions of people are fooled, thus encouraging spammers to keep on spamming.

Make sure your customers know that you are doing everything possible to protect them from unwanted junk mail and solicitations. Your policies for protecting your customers from spam should be prominently stated on your opening page.

Tips from your web hosting provider to minimize being spammed:

1. Do not put your personal email address on your website. There are products called “spam spiders” that search the internet for email addresses.
2. Never buy anything sent through spam mail. That will just encourage them to send you more unsolicited messages.
3. Never reply to unsolicited spam and ask to be unsubscribed. They’ll just ignore your request anyway and your response will tell them that your email address is accurate, which just keeps you on the list. (This does not apply to legitimate email newsletters and mailing lists. Many of them use automated unsubscribe buttons at the bottom of their emails that you can use to get off of their mailing lists.)
4. Beware of check boxes. When you sign up for something on the Web, there is often some innocent-looking text at the end of the form saying something like: "YES, I want to be contacted by select third parties concerning products I might be interested in." Quite often, the checkbox next to that text is already checked and your email address is subject to be distributed anywhere and to anybody. To avoid that, look closely at every form you fill in on the Web and make sure all relevant checkboxes are not ticked. Sometimes, the text will read: "NO, don't give away my email address," and the checkbox will consequently be unchecked by default. Check it.

Unfortunately, spammers are extremely innovative and they make it their goal in life to figure out how to get around spam blockers and other tools that protect consumers. Your web host is on the cutting edge and is your best defense against spam. Let them run interference for you so you can say goodbye to spooky spam forever.

 

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