If you don't know how to do that comparison, ask your eight-year-old grandchildren to help. Check the "unsubscribe" link in the e-mail to see that it starts ( not ends) with the same domain name. Re-Google the names and note the real domain name for each company's link. (Remember, even with removal, you might still get an e-mail or two over a 10-day period because of pre-planned mailings.)Īfter that time has passed, start looking at the remaining e-mails. Add those to the ones who don't have "contact" links at their websites, and then sit back for a week or two. There will be a few businesses - especially those who use third-party companies to manage their mailing lists - who won't respond. About 99% of business you contact that way will be happy to help, because they don't want the bad word-of-mouth that comes from unwanted e-mails clogging people's inboxes. Use that to send a message to the company, explaining you have been signed up for their e-mails without your consent by a spambot, and requesting removal. (Try to avoid actually opening the e-mail, just in case it has a malware script embedded in it.) Now go directly to the business' website from the Google link, and look for a "contact us" link. Search for the business whose name appears in the Subject field. What should you do instead? Well, this is one case where Google is your best friend. only the bogies lead you to phishing websites, where (they hope) you'll give them personal information. (First big hint: You should never have to enter a "password" to unsubscribe from a legitimate business' mailing list.) So they filter in some bogus e-mail messages, which get mixed in with all the real ones. This is what the phishers are hoping for - that you will click on every "unsubscribe" link you can find, and enter any information it wants - because you just want to get rid of those e-mails. There is a good reason for this advice: Because you didn't initiate the sign-up, you are in the worst possible position to tell whether or not the webpage you are sent to is legitimate! As obvious as doing this would seem to be, do not click on the "unsubscribe" link. Start with the obvious "welcome to our list" mails. So you will not see "spam" from all of them right away, but you likely will within 10 days or so. Moving on to the rest: Some business send e-mail promotions more often than others. That means over 50% of that original flood will have no ongoing effect on your inbox. Ignore any e-mail asking you to confirm your signing up, because when no response is received, the sign-up is disregarded. More than half of those e-mails will be "confirm your subscription" mails as this type of e-mail fraud has increased, more businesses are adding this "opt-in" step to prevent their messages from going to people who didn't really want them. The first thing you should do if that happens is DON'T PANIC. You'll know when you've become the target because you will suddenly get a flood of e-mails from all these e-lists. Typically, it will sign you up for between 150 and 175 mailing lists. When it finds one, it puts your e-mail address in and signs you up. instead of sending you spam e-mails directly, a "spambot" searches the Internet looking for businesses that have a "sign up for our mailing list" box on their websites. Since Sid Kirchheimer wisely keeps his contact information from being easily researched (smart man!) I'm going to post here what I would have sent to him, because an extremely worrisome version of "spam" is combining with "phishing" techniques to attempt to get personal information.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |