*** ANSWERMAN INTERNET EXTRA *** For the week of April 14, 1997 This is the free weekly newsletter for the community of Internet users on America Online. This week, AnswerMan rants about spam. =*=*= IN THIS ISSUE =*=*= AnswerMan's Update -- Spam! Upcoming Weekly Focus -- What's coming up The End -- How to contact us or unsubscribe =*=*= WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK WITH ANSWERMAN =*=*= Go to keyword: For: ANSWERMAN Daily tips and Internet message boards AM FOCUS More information on using e-mail NET HELP Get quick help for your Internet questions NET TUTORIAL A journey of 1,000 miles begins with this keyword AM GLOSSARY Decrypt that Internet jargon Here are direct links for AOL 3.0 users: Go to keyword ANSWERMAN Go to keyword AM FOCUS NET TUTORIAL =*=*= ANSWERMAN'S UPDATE =*=*= As soon as this newsletter hits the listserv, your intrepid AnswerMan will be removing his fez and hightailing it to Las Vegas. I'll be sipping ginger ale by the pool and feeding poker machines in the casino. Maybe I'll hear the crooning of Tom Jones (well, not likely.) Anyway, I'll be back in time for next week's newsletter -- you'll hardly notice that I've left you. In the mean time, if you have questions, please take them to keyword ANSWERMAN and post them in the message boards. There the faithful and helpful CJs (cyber jockeys) will do their best answer your questions. Of course, for instant answers to many questions and problems, you can go to keywords NET HELP and AM FOCUS. I get many questions via e-mail, and do my best to answer them all with the help of CJ Eagle. Unfortunately, the mailbox is currently overflowing, and my impending vacation won't help that. I won't mince words, I hate junk e-mail. Call it what you will: bulk mail, junk mail, spam... it's a pain, it's intrusive, it's irritating. There is nothing redeeming about it. It wastes peoples' time, Internet bandwidth and besides, sending it is bad karma. Does it seem like you've been getting more junk mail lately? As more Internet marketers (I use the term loosely, as the art of marketing requires skill; spamming does not) learn about the Internet, the amount of bulk mail is increasing. AOL isn't selling your names to these bottom-feeders -- quite the opposite. But if you do just about anything on AOL or the Internet -- including having a member profile, chatting in the People Connection, posting to Usenet or an AOL message board -- they can get your name. AOL has a unique service that helps stem the flow of junk mail. It's called PreferredMail, and it's automatically activated for every AOL member. (If you want more junk mail, you can turn it off at keyword PREFERRED MAIL.) But PreferredMail can't block all the spam. PreferredMail blocks messages from sites that are known spammers. If a site isn't on its blacklist, PreferredMail will happily deliver any and all messages from that site. Thus, the first time a site spams AOL members, PreferredMail can't stop the onslaught. Here's what happens next: AOL members find the bulk mail in their mailboxes and forward the offending message to the screen name TOSSPAM. The good people at TOSSPAM do nothing but read the complaints and add offending sites to PreferredMail's blacklist. (Can you imagine if your job was to read spam all day? What does that do to a peron's outlook on life? Bless their hearts.) So PreferredMail is now on the job, blocking messages from that site too. Meanwhile the spammers start to get orders for their thigh cream, erotic Web sites, and illegal pyramid schemes. If they make money, they just get a new Internet site -- one that PreferredMail isn't blocking -- and spam anew from there. It's a cycle that so far doesn't have an ending. But you can help bring it to an end. Always forward junk mail to TOSSPAM. Never, ever buy anything from someone who markets their products this way. I believe its best to ignore their e-mail altogether. Just delete it and move on to the better things in life. It is probably pretty clear that I'm passionate about my feelings on spam. Last time I wrote about spam, a few folks e-mailed me telling me that they like to get those unsolicited commercial messages. One person told me that he made big money selling his miracle weight loss plan via bulk e-mail. Have no mercy. Spammers know that what they're doing is wrong. They usually forge the return e-mail address so you can't reply to them. (You've got to visit their Web sites or call them instead.) They make the body of the message black, hiding all the headers, so you can't easily tell where the message came from. There's more information about dealing with spam at keyword AM FOCUS. I particularly recommend reading the article "Those Bulk E-mail Blues" available there -- it includes excellent specific tips for dealing with those vermin. Here are direct links for AOL 3.0 users: Go to keyword ANSWERMAN Go to keyword AM FOCUS =*=*= UPCOMING WEEKLY FOCUS =*=*= Every week, AnswerMan focuses on a particular facet of using the Internet. Here are the Weekly Focus topics we'll be covering in the near future: April 21 - April 27: Getting Help Online April 28 - May 4: Playing games on the Internet also this month: genealogy sites =*=*= THE END =*=*= That's all for this week. Got comments about this newsletter? We want to hear them! Send 'em to AnswerMan. The e-mail address is AnswerMan@aol.com. We would hate to see you go, but if you must leave, there are two easy ways to unsubscribe yourself from this newsletter. You can use either. #1: Send an e-mail message -- To: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE Body: UNSUBSCRIBE ANSWERMAN #2: For AOL 3.0 users only: Click here then press "Unsubscribe". It's not unusual to be loved by anyone, and it's not unusual to be copyrighted 1997 by America Online, Inc. 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