All About AntiSpam Software

If you use the POP email capability of the hosting company where your web site resides, there is a good chance that you may have overlooked an easily cured spam problem.

Most hosting companies include 50 or 100 email accounts with any hosting plan offered. Multiple email accounts can come in very handy - you can create separate email destinations for various functions such as new orders, customer service, technical questions. If you use email accounts in addition to the default email account created when you set up your hosting plan, you could unknowingly find yourself with a big spam problem.

Here is an example. Let's say that I purchase hosting for my website domain called jonathanginsbergdotcom.  When this hosting plan is set up, a default email account called jonath (at) jonathanginsbergdotcom was set up automatically by the hosting company's software.

Being the business tychoon that I am, I decide that I am not going to use "jonath" as my email address , but instead would prefer to set up three other accounts: "orders (at) jonathanginsberg dot com," "techsupport (at) jonathanginsberg dot com," and "owner (at) jonathanginsberg dot com." I therefore set up POP accounts for each of these three email addresses and I commence to run my business.

Since I am not using "jonath (at) jonathanginsberg dot com" I don't set up a POP account and I basically forget that this email account even exists.

This is where my problem starts. Unless I designate otherwise, the "jonath" address is the default address for my account. All emails not addressed to one of my three active email accounts will be automatically directed to the jonath folder.

Spammers, as you may know, use computer programs to generate thousands of emails to random names at any domain they target. So, while I am sleeping or working, some spammer selling a breast enhancement potion will be generating hundreds of emails for "lucy (at) jonathanginsberg dot com" or "mary (at) jonathanginsberg dot com." All of these spam emails, end up in my default account - "jonath" - the one that I never check.

Fast forward a year and my hosting company calls to say that my account is out of space. My legitimate emails start to bounce. Why - because my hosting account is full of all that spam.

This situation actually happened to me and I ended up with almost thirteen thousand spam emails.

Here's how to prevent this problem from happening:

1. when you create your hosting account, change the default email box to a name that you will actually use. If you can use a "." do so - i.e., tom.smith (at) mydomain.com as opposed to "tom (at) mydomain.com. If possible, put a number in your email address - spam generation programs usually create only names.

2. ask your hosting company to change the setting for emails addressed to names other than those that you specifically set up. Instead of having those emails forwarded to you, have them discarded. Most systems have a setting called "blackhole" or "bounce."

3. change the setting on your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) to provide that email messages are not to be left on the server or at best, they should be left on the server for only a day or two.

4. once or twice a year, call your hosting company to ask about your disk usage. If you see that a lot of your disk space is allocated to an email account, you know that you have a problem.

It is truly unfortunate that business owners have to waste time dealing with spam issues. A little prevention is this area goes a long way.