First of all you must know that there is no way to stop it, it's like trying to stop the rain. While you can't stop the rain, you can try to avoid getting wet. I have written some of the things that I have done to successfully avoid junk mail from clogging my inbox.

First, there are some rules that you must adhere to:

Where does Spam come from:

Knowing where it comes from will really help you learn to avoid it. I know this may sound stupid and obvious but, if you didn't know where the rain came from, you would get wet all of the time. The way that most spammers get your address is from you, there are many sites on the web that ask for an email address, some of these you want to do such as trying free software or getting more information about something. The site will give it to you for free but will send you a password to get in or get the software. It may be a legit company and seem safe, after all you know that they won't spam you. They could be your bank for example. What the so called legit companies do is sell your address to spammers. Sounds terrible doesn't it, but they have been doing it for years. Even before the internet, companies would sell your home address to "marketing companies" and voila, you've got mail. It's not much different today.

One of the things that is different is the sheer volume of junk mail. When mail is sent to your house, it costs money, a lot of money. Because of that the "marketing companies" did a lot of demographic research to target you for specific items or services. Now that it is virtually free to send email, they send everything to everyone.

Have you ever sent an email and had it come back saying that that address doesn't exist? Maybe you typed it in wrong or that person had changed their address. Spammers get this too but they never really see it or care. They have a huge list of email addresses and send stuff to all of them, some of them don't exist anymore but they are still not taken off of the list as it is easier to just add address, never remove.

One of the biggest ways to encourage spam is to hit the remove link or to reply in any way to the message. When you do that you are saying to the spammer "Hey, not only do you have my address correct but I am one of those people who actually took time to read your ad". They love this and will put you on their new list that they will sell to other spammers and the cycle never ends.

One of the newest ways I have discovered that they confirm your address is by adding an image to the email. Sounds innocent enough as anyone can add an image to an email. Don't worry, you can't get a virus from the image but you can get on the list of people who open their spam. There are two ways to add an image, and I am not talking about adding one as an attachment, I mean right in the email itself. An example would be the MasterCard/Visa logos or their company logo or a picture of the product they are trying to unload. First way is to send it with the email so you download it when you first get the message, this it the way that most of them do it. The other way is to enter code in the message telling your computer to download the message from their site as you open the message. This is a harmless and common way to do it. The way I have seen a couple of spammers do it lately is to add a unique code to the image you download. When your computer requests that picture, you have confirmed your address and the fact that you opened their spam. Sneaky isn't it? While I understand this may not make much sense to most people, the moral of this story is that just opening spam can cause more.

Setting up two or more email addresses:

The reason for two address is simple, one for friends and family and one for spam. You may ask, 'why one for spam'? The answer is to keep it out of your way. Remember, the spam is coming whether you like it or not, what we will do is re-direct it someplace else.  I highly recommend getting free email. One place to get it is hotmail you can get "yourname@hotmail.com" for example. This will be in addition to the email provided to you by your ISP (AOL, Roadrunner, etc.) Use this address for anything that will generate spam. Use your ISP address for your personal stuff. I use joebayer@hotmail.com for things that will generate spam. An example is: I want to get a weekly newsletter on photography, if I had it sent to my personal address, I would get spam along with it. Don't bother sending and email to my hotmail account, I hardly ever check it.

Now, don't use the free emails for your personal address because you will get spam even if you never told a soul the address because the free email people will give it out.

Another reason I like to use Hotmail for free email is that it has a filter built into it that really helps sort the spam. It doesn't stop all of it but it will find most.

If you already receive spam on the address you want to use for personal use, there is no way to stop it. I suggest you get a new address or use the filters (see filters below).

Don't reply in any way:

Replying to spam will only get more of the same. These people don't care about you or your desire to be removed from their list. Replying in any way only confirms that they have your correct email address and that you take the time to read it. Why would they really want to stop sending you ads?

The exception to this is if you are dealing with a legitimate American company such as American Express, Ford, Time Warner etc. I somehow got on a mailing list for www.baby.com , I don't know how, maybe because I was one once, anyway, I clicked on their unsubscribe button but continued to receive spam from them. I then went to their website and gathered up every email address I could find and sent a letter explaining that I followed their procedure for being removed but still received spam. I was finally taken off of the list 2 weeks and several emails later. I would not have cared if I kept getting it but I wanted to see if I could stop it.

Filters:

What the heck are filters? Well you may be aware that you can store the emails you receive into different folders within you email program. Use can use filters to redirect emails to any folder including your trash can. You can for example, tell the computer to redirect any mail from Bob Wilson to the Business folder. When ever Bob sends you an email, it won't go to your inbox, it will go to the business folder. What you want to do is sent the junk mail to the trash. 

I have in my kitchen at home a "Reverse Osmosis" water filter. Instead of trying to remove the dirt from the water, it removes the water from the dirt. The water filter will only allow Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules through and lets everything else go down the drain. This reverse filtering method may be what you need if things are really bad. The way it would work is: you tell the computer to throw it all away except for mail from certain people. This method is very effective however, you can loose valuable mail that way too.

I think I will set up another page on how to program filters as that can be another discussion all by itself.