Guarding against the nuisance of spam without becoming obsessional is an art. The feeling of being singled out for victimization is a symptom you should banish; everyone is targeted, it isn’t just you. Consider this statistic: in the last half of 2010, over 90 percent of emails sent were of a spamming nature. Still, being hounded by unasked-for mail that seems hell-bent on remote robbery, however common, is decidedly distasteful.
Spam will not go away. That is point number one. And even if you withdraw from virtually all internet contact and cease opening your emails, the stuff will keep coming, most generated by robots (but robots working for ill-intentioned humans). Fake emails masquerading as the real thing are the hardest to come to terms with. The golden rule is never to input bank account numbers, access codes or home address in response to any email. That information should be reserved for those occasions when you yourself have initiated a transaction by going to the website of your own volition, be it an airline, your bank or a retail site.
Precautions which won’t kill off your online existence can be taken. One course of action to maximize your protection against the unwanted approaches of fakers – from pretend banks and universities to internet beggars – is setting your email inbox security to its strongest level. Since this normally means accepting mail only from senders in one’s contact list or address book, regular physical checks of the dreaded junk mailbox are necessary. Otherwise, wanted mail can easily bypass your notice. If you have the time and inclination, you can flag up these scam emails as ‘phishing,’ and thus help to drive them further away.
As for social networking sites like Facebook, here you should visit the privacy settings facility and ensure that your details aren’t shared with commercial sites, but are seen only by the friends you have added. Take charge of spam rather than let it swamp you.