Spam Slayer: My Pet Peeves

It's a problem: You return from a summer vacation and have to spend hours over the course of days deleting the hundreds of spam messages that have piled up. I know the feeling because that's what happened to me last week.

Sadly, plenty of junk and phishing e-mail made it through my spam filters during my two-week vacation. Much of the crud I deleted was unmistakably garbage of the Viagra and EBay account cancellation type. But a great deal of what I deleted was what I call "just-as-bad-as-spam e-mail." You know what I'm talking about. Not overtly spam, these unwanted e-mail messages are from business acquaintances, colleagues, and friends.

This e-mail lards up our inboxes just as unmistakably as spam does and contributes to the all-too-pervasive problem of e-mail overload that has become a major distraction in the workplace. In fact, a study by King's College London, commissioned by Hewlett-Packard, found that e-mail is so distracting that it reduces not only your productivity levels, but also your IQ. When test subjects had to deal with work and e-mail messages simultaneously, their IQs dropped 10 points on average, researchers found.

If that's not bad enough, the stuff wastes money. Computer Mail Services has an online calculator for figuring out the high cost of spam. According the calculator, an employee who earns $20 an hour and receives 25 spam messages a day will spend almost 13 hours every year deleting spam. That will cost his company $170 annually.

What follows are my pet peeves. If the unnecessary e-mail I describe here was eradicated, the e-mail world would be a little smarter, more productive, and you--or your boss--would save money.

By the way, a couple of my suggestions involve using e-mail filters. If you're not familiar with filters, read Steve Bass's series on the subject, "Home Office: Block Spam With E-Mail Filters," parts one, two, and three.

Spamish Onslaught

Problem: Business acquaintances who take it upon themselves to sign you up for their e-mail newsletters can be major headaches--especially when you can't stop the newsletters.

Over a month ago I began trying to unsubscribe from an e-mail list. I was receiving four messages a day pitching an Internet search company. After my first unsubscribe request didn't work, I put the sender's address on my block list. But a week later, the sender changed the e-mail address and the messages besieged my inbox again.

Solution: Block e-mail based on words embedded in the e-mail message, such as a name, and not just by the sender's e-mail address.

Suggestion: If you want anyone to take you seriously, do not sign them up for your newsletter without asking first--even if you're sure they'd want it.

Swap Info With Virtual Strangers

Problem: Three programs are the bane of my inbox existence. I know that many people find Good Contacts, Plaxo, and Ringo to be benign and extremely useful tools, helping them keep contact information up-to-date. But all too often I get update requests from people I don't recognize--which makes me wonder whether I'm being duped into handing over my personal information to a stranger.

Solution: Create a folder and dump contact request messages in there.

Suggestion: Be judicious about requesting information from people in your address book, especially when it comes to contact information.

Using Spam Tactics

Problem: We all can think of a friend who likes to create provocative e-mail subject lines, often in all capital letters, saying things like "YOUR LAST CHANCE" or "THE RED SOX STINK." This is meant, I suppose, to draw your attention to their e-mail to the exclusion of other messages. Not only is this trick used by spammers, but too often the subject lines just don't match the message, misleading you about the actual content.

Suggestion: A good subject line is less than six words long and is in keeping with the theme of the e-mail message. (By the way, the Sox don't stink; they are world champions for now.)

Stop, Please Stop

Problem: Colleagues who send out more than two useless messages a day are annoying. It's one thing to announce that there's birthday cake in the break room. But what really gets my goat are two or more messages in the same day coming from the same person on inane, quasi-work-related matters. The messages seem like more of an attempt to raise the sender's visibility than to genuinely contribute to the company's productivity.

Suggestion: Save up a week's worth of blather for one long e-mail message and send it on Friday afternoon with the subject line: "DELETE THIS, I'M FULL OF IT ANYWAY." Okay, so that's one word over my subject-line limit. Sometimes rules do need to be broken.

Please AIM Your Spam Elsewhere

Problem: If you and your colleagues use instant messaging software, chances are good that someone you know practices IM nagging. This is when someone sends an instant message notifying you they sent you an e-mail. Not only is this redundant, but I also ask: Isn't e-mail distracting enough without someone interrupting you to remind you of unread e-mails?

Suggestion: When you do receive an e-mail that requires immediate action, reply to the sender, letting them know you received their message and will reply ASAP.

Stop Sending Nonsense

Problem: Too often I receive messages that just don't make sense. I can't tell you how many ambiguous e-mails I've gotten--from coworkers, business associates, and even my boss--that I'm still trying to decipher. These are the hardest to delete for fear that the message could actually mean something.

Suggestion: E-mail is not the appropriate venue for free association and writing in Klingon (unless the recipient is a Klingon, of course). Be clear and concise and re-read messages you compose for clarity before you hit Send.

Mind Your CCs and BCCs

Problem: All too often, when a company-wide broadcast e-mail is sent, some of the recipients broadcast their replies to the same e-mail list. Sometimes this makes sense; other times it creates inbox clutter.

Suggestion: When sending a broadcast e-mail, put the list of e-mail addresses in the BCC field. BCC stands for "blind carbon copy" and means all that the recipient sees is the sender's name. When the recipient hits Reply, the message will be returned to the sender only--not the entire group.

The inbox world has enough to hate: spam. Who needs to deal with these e-mail annoyances? Better e-mail etiquette can go a long way toward relieving the weight of unwanted e-mail.

Send gripes, questions, and tips for the spam wars to Tom Spring. Go to the Spam Watch page for more articles.