6 ways to fight spam -- Page 2
By Pat Curry • Bankrate.com

One alternative is to spell out your address without using the @ symbol to keep it from being harvested.

"The trick is to make it readable by a human but make a squeegee look at it and say, 'I don't know what that is,'" Strickler says. "It's not a perfect system, but the harder you make it, the less likely you'll be a victim."

Be creative in your e-mail address
Among the latest tools used by spammers are dictionary attacks. These are the electronic version of a telemarketer's auto-dialer, which puts together every possible combination of numbers and keeps dialing until someone picks up the phone. A dictionary attack puts together logical combinations of letters and numbers and blasts out millions of e-mail messages with the hope that a fraction of them will actually find their way to mailboxes.

Never, ever respond to spam
They've all got "opt-out" messages with instructions on how to be deleted from the subscription list. By responding to those messages, you've only confirmed that you have a valid e-mail address, Strickler says. That information is regularly sold between spammers, and will increase the flood exponentially.

Don't open spam messages
A special tag in the file lets the spammers know if it's been opened. "That's like a giant Nielsen rating," Strickler says. "They want you to open it because it flags you as a real, live person."

Use disposable e-mail addresses
Many people set up free accounts with services such as Juno and Hotmail to enter sweepstakes, fill out surveys, or order products online. Once that junk e-mail address gets too full, they can just shut it down. Williams compared these accounts to having a public versus an unlisted phone number, with the unlisted number only being given to the people you really want to talk to.

Use an anti-spam filter
Most major ISPs provide their customers with this service. If yours doesn't, you can purchase your own from such providers as McAffee or Symantec (the makers of Norton Anti-Virus).

A combination of these strategies should help you reduce the deluge to a more manageable trickle. Strickler compares it to catching a cold -- you can't avoid them completely, but you can do a lot to reduce the risks.

"Getting off e-mail lists is functionally impossible," Strickler says. "But there are things you can do to ward it off."