You've Got Junk Mail

Take Other Measures

But filters on your PC can do only so much. Everett-Church advises asking your ISP exactly what steps it's taking to filter out spam. For instance, many smaller and regional ISPs subscribe to the Realtime Black Hole List, a regularly updated UNIX-based database containing information about known spamming sites. An ISP's servers can use this data to automatically block junk e-mailers' access. Says Everett-Church, "It's a fairly intricate, sophisticated way of using information about junk mail abuse to protect others."

Most junk e-mail marketers include instructions in their messages (often buried at the bottom) on how to remove yourself from their lists. Scrupulous bulk mailers honor your requests, Everett-Church says, while others ignore them or, worse, send even more spam to your in-box.

Don't respond with anger or obscenities, says Cooley. "The worst spammers often hide behind forged IDs. Some even made it appear that their messages came from America Online officials." So your angry response may go to an innocent bystander.

The best way to respond to a particularly irksome spam is to track down the actual sender. Forged domain names and e-mail addresses make it tricky to identify a spammer, so Cooley uses Sam Spade, a freeware program available on PC World Online, to decipher the messages' origins.

The utility is easy to use and can quickly identify the ISP a message was sent from, Cooley says. Armed with that information, he sends a copy of the offensive mail directly to the originating provider as well as to the ISPs that passed it along.

Usually, Cooley explains, all you have to do is address your complaint to postmaster@ISP name .com, or abuse@ISP name.com. Says Cooley, "If you show them evidence that a spammer is going through their service, they may kick the spammer off or, in some cases, sue."