Spam is a problem for everyone. In 2003 the CAN-SPAM Act was passed to help define and reduce spam. All of us have received spam on occasion, and in some cases it is the bulk of the email we receive.

It is more frustrating to fight spam then it is to take preventive measures to reduce the amount of spam received. This document is to serve as a way to educate and provide options that are available to assist in reducing the amount of spam you receive in your inbox.

First and foremost, once you have identified an email as spam DO NOT reply to the sender or open any attachments included with the email. This action, in most cases, will only prove the email address is real and additional spam will be received. In most cases 10 fold.

Do not attempt to click the option to remove your email address from the sender’s mailing list (should be available at the bottom of each mailing by law), unless you know and trust the source and have signed up previously, as this in most cases will remove your email address from one list while at the same time adding it to multiple other spam lists.

If you are receiving the same spam mailing over and over then we strongly suggest reporting it to Spam Cop (http://www.spamcop.net). This is a service most email providers use to determine what is and is not spam. Reporting the spam here will assist in removing the spam source from being delivered to millions of other user’s inboxes. And quite possibly locating the source of the spam and resolving it once and for all from this sender. Most people are not aware of this service and hence do not report spam even though they are very frustrated and in most cases abandon their email account as a result. If you use this service please ensure to read their policies before reporting spam.

Some additional options that are available to our client’s are:

1) SpamAssassin (available in your hosting control panel) is an automated mail filter that uses a wide range of heuristic algorithms on email headers and message bodies to identify "SPAM" (unsolicited email). SpamAssassin is designed to identify and mark emails that score beyond your threshold value. An email's SpamAssassin score is the sum of values given to certain known spam characteristics. For more information, please visit the developers' website: http://www.spamassassin.org This option can result in real emails being marked as spam if you are not aware how to configure it correctly. In most cases trial and error is the result until you have configured the settings to work correctly for your own application. Any emails caught and tagged as spam with this method will NOT be delivered to your email inbox. This is also true for legitimate emails that have been caught by SpamAssassin’s filter.

2) Spam Box which is also available from within your hosting control panel. This feature allows emails identified as spam by SpamAssassin to be delivered to a separate mail folder named "spam". If this folder is not regularly checked and emptied, it may cause your email or file system quotas to be exceeded, resulting in a failure to receive legitimate messages. You can easily use IMAP or Horde/IMP to check messages that are routed to this box. If you wish to use pop3 to check the spam box, just add "/spam" (without the quotes) to the end of your pop3 login. (Example: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it /spam) in your mail client.

To enable either SpamAssassin or SpamBox follow the directions below:
1) Log into your hosting control panel
2) Click on the “Mail” icon
3) Click on the “SpamAssassin” link
4) You can enable either by clicking on the “Enable” button under the corresponding option.

If you require assistance in configuring SpamAssassin please review http://www.spamassassin.org

3) Change your email address and protect your new primary email. We strongly suggest to create a new email account within your hosting control pane. You can place an auto-responder on the old email address that notifies people sending you legitimate mail to update the email address they  have on file and resend the original email to the new email account. Provided that you protect your email address on your website from spam crawlers with javascript (we can do this for you), you don't publish your email address on any papers or other web documents, and you give your primary email address with discernment, your spam problem should be solved. We find this a better solution than spam blockers or message rules within your email client which can result in legitimate emails being filtered and lost.

4) You can also use a third party service such as SpamArrest. For more information on this service please see http://www.spamarrest.com/howitworks

Note: We do not support resolving spam issues. Although we are available to make general suggestions.