Protect Your Address

9 of 10 from 10 Ways to Unclutter Your Inbox and Regain Your Morning Sanity

Don't give out your main email address when placing orders, entering contests, or filling out forms. It is a good idea to set up an alternate email address (maybe even a third one in addition to your personal and business accounts) so that you might receive correspondence from vendors or those with whom you do personal business.

Even if you have only signed up for one offer or bought one item over a period of many years, many of these vendors and businesses will constantly annoy you with unwanted messages and advertisements, or will distribute your email address out to third parties and spammers.

Posting your email address on a website or newsgroups is a bad idea as well. The primary way spammers build their databases is by harvesting them from unsuspecting sites. If you'd like people to be able to contact you via your website, it's best to build a form with the destination email address properly hidden. If you must list your plain address on your site, ask your web developer to encrypt it to hinder the gathering process for spam bots.

These steps will limit the spam you receive in your most important email account or accounts, and will also help you to monitor any purchases you've made or offers you've signed up for at an appropriate time and in a more efficient manner.

Step 10: Use a Spam Filter