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The earliest use of the Internet is today the most
popular too. The popularity of surfing went on increasing after
the introduction of WWW. It had the highest percentage share in
2000 & started decreasing after that. Back in 2001, chatting
was as popular as email, but the percentage of online users chatting
has decreased now as has surfing. Emails have also become the most
popular mode for business communication, with more than 80% respondents
of a Meta Group study preferring email to phone. People can write
& respond at a time convenient to them, it keeps a written record
& is much better than telephone for group communication, no
to mention cost savings while communicating across geographically
dispersed locations. Email attachments have already replaced 50%
of faxed documents.
Emails do not seem to have a bright future though. Virus attacks
& spam mails seem to be succeeding in slowly killing the most
popular application on the Internet. A study released by Online
Publishing News has shown that up to 17 per cent of bona fide opt-in
email Alerts are blocked by ISPs.
Anti spam legislation
U.S. Congress and the European Commission have promised concrete
action on spam by late this year. European Union Directives that
will effect marketing practices in 15 European nations will be enforced
on November 1, 2003. There has been a major difference in viewpoint
of the lawmakers though. While US believes in 'opt out' laws, EU
is gearing up towards 'opt in' laws. While EU marketers will have
to ask for permission before mailing, US marketers can send mails
unless the user specifically requests to be removed. With more than
1/3rd spam originating from US, first time spam messages will keep
coming. Other countries currently developing legislation against
spam are also divided on this issue.
According to the current law, a mail is not considered spam if
the sender:
1)identifies himself with his full name, address, and phone number
(toll free in some US states).
2)provides a valid email address in the "form" field for
people to reply to.
3)removes anyone who requests to be removed from the list immediately.
4)does not use stealth technology to hide the origin of the email.
5)does not relay the email from other's servers or use unauthorized
resources
Frauds
When the spam you receive is an online scam, there is much more
than time & Internet access costs at stake. The Nigerian letter
scam is 20 years old & started out using fax & mailiers.
It peaked in 2000-01 (900% rise) thanks to emails, which enabled
it to achieve epidemic proportions. There are many variations of
the infamous letter, which asks recipients to provide their bank
details in order to help move funds from strife-torn places. There
have been mails announcing that your online banking system has been
completely revamped & you will have to reactivate your account
by logging in to the online banking facility. The mail asks you
to follow a link which takes you to a site which replicates the
actual site of the bank & collects your login information.
The top ten email scams are:
1)Bogus online auctions, where the items purchased are never delivered.
2)Deliberate misrepresentation or non-delivery of general merchandise
purchased online.
3)Nigerian money offers.
4)Deliberate misrepresentation or non-delivery of computer equipment
or software purchased online.
5)Internet access scams, where bogus internet service providers
fraudulently charge for services that were never ordered or received.
6)Credit card or telephone charges for services that were never
ordered or misrepresented as free. These often include charges for
accessing 'adult' material.
7)Work-at-home schemes promising wildly exaggerated sales and profits.
8)Advance fee loans, where consumers are duped into paying upfront
charges for loans which never materialise.
9)Phoney offers of cheap-rate credit card deals, once again on payment
of upfront fees.
10)Business opportunities or franchises sold on the basis of exaggerated
profit estimates.
Source: BBC "Hall of Shame"
- Top 10 email scams exposed
Spam education
Email users need to be educated on how to protect themselves from
their share of the 7 trillion odd spams & scams that come their
way. Here are a few tips:
- A legitimate service never asks for usernames & passwords
via email
- If you have a website & publish your email there, either
make it an image (you cannot use the mailto link though) or use
an easily available javascript code to make it illegible for email
harvesting bots. You can generate the required javascript here:
http://sitesecuritytips.com/emailenc.html
- Dont click on the “Remove” or “Unsubscribe”
link. It only validates your email address as live!
- Various services maintain a 'blacklist' of spammers. You can
report any spam you receive to these sites. Some of the anti spam
software provide this feature too.
- Do not give out your personal email id anywhere, online or
offline. Use a free service like hotmail to set up an account
specifically for this purpose. You will only get caught in the
spam net if one of your friends or acquaintances gives away your
personal email address (for example, to a viral marketing site)
Anti spam tools
There are more than 80 startups that specialize in stopping spam
apart from established companies launching their products. They
use various methods to identify spam. Some of these tools are Mailblocks
('challenge' method), Qurb, ChoiceMail and Goodbye Spam ('whitelists'
method), SpamKiller (filters), SpamNet, Mailwasher (blacklist database)
& SpamAssassin (point system).
For a review of some of these softwares visit http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,4148,4795,00.asp
Spammers use these softwares to find out ways in which their message
can bypass detection as spam. In meeting up to the challenge, these
softwares block many legitimate mails. With a little ingenuity,
one can manage to block most spam mails by using filters & rules
in most email clients. Unfortunately, you still have to spend valuable
time everyday reviewing the results of these softwares or your filtering
rules to find out those 20-30% legitimate mails & newsletters
that have been wrongly identified as spam.
In spite of all the awareness about spam & the productivity
losses due to it, spam continiues as email marketing still remains
effective with opening & click through rates showing a steady
increase this year. The fight against spammers is just beginning.
Lawmakers have to agree on common international laws, anti-spam
softwares will have to be one up on spammers trying out new ways
to get those mails into inboxes & email users have to use existing
tools & training to prevent their mailboxes getting flooded.
Till that happens, a lot of legitimate emails will get deleted without
ever reaching the intended mailbox & users will find managing
email boxes a daunting task!
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