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What is spam?

Spam is the Internet's version of telemarketing, hundreds of email messages being sent to you to promote some product or scam. The volume of spam varies but it can account for more than 90 % of all email messages sent, filling your inbox with junk for you to sort through.

If it is illegal why isn't anyone arrested?

Sending spam is illegal but it is difficult to track down the people behind it. They do not use their own computers to send email, instead they use networks of thousands of infected computers to do the job for them. The computer owners usually do not know that their machine is being controlled by someone else. The spammers can control these “botnets” from anywhere in the world using the Internet.

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How did they get my address?

Spammers get your email address in a variety of ways. They may use viruses to scan infected computers for addresses, they scan web pages for contact information, or they encourage you to submit your address as part of signing up for something like a free game.

I receive spam, is my computer infected?

The fact that you are receiving spam does not mean that your computer is infected, it means that someone has been able to obtain your email address.

What can I do?

Once you use email, it is very difficult to totally prevent spam but there are some things you can do to make it easier to deal with.

• Never buy anything promoted by spam. The purpose is to promote something for profit, if no one ever buys they will eventually have to stop. Also remember that these people are dishonest, they are breaking the law by sending you spam, what will stop them from cheating you?

• Be very careful who you give your email address to. Keep two email accounts, one for your real email and another “junk” account for signing up for anything you find suspicious.

• Use a spam filter on your email program. Many Internet security suites have “junk” filters to remove spam. I use the free Thunderbird email program as it has a very good spam filter built in. These filters are not perfect, they still let a few junk messages through and may remove a few valid email messages (you can recover them) but overall they make reading email more bearable.