What Not to do:

1. Do not post your real email address on a forum or bulletin board. Spammers use special programs which harvest these and use them to build spam lists. Set up multiple email addresses. If you regularly sign up to a lot of web sites, which may sell email addresses as a source of revenue, consider having one email address just for this purpose, while keeping your other - real - email address private to friends and family.

2. Do not respond in any way to a spam message: By replying to the message or any address that might be listed within the message for being removed from the mailing list, there are several different things that are likely to happen, none of them constructive.

   • You will be ignored.

   • Your reply will bounce - Many times the spammer has inserted a fake return address to avoid having his e-mailbox filled with irate e-mails or requests for removal.

   • You will unintentionally spam an innocent victim - Many times the spammer will insert, as the return address, a real address of an innocent third party out of spite or malice. Your attempts to reply will only harm this third party.

   • You will be added to a mailing list - One tactic used by spammers is to search for real e-mail addresses by sending to easily guessed addresses, such as jsmith@domain.com. If you reply, this confirms to them that your address has a person on the other end reading the e-mail, and it will then be sold to other spammers as a verified e-mail address.