Credit Cards and Identity Theft

Once upon a time, your biggest worry with a credit card was that someone might use it if you lost it or it was stolen. With the ever increasing complexity of today’s world, there’s a bigger danger lurking for the unwary. It’s called identity theft, and until a few years ago it was so rare that victims were often not believed when they tried to explain their situation.

The widespread computerisation of records has made it far easier than ever to gather not just hundreds but hundreds of thousands of account names, identification numbers and other identifying information. All it takes is the ability to break into one computer in a banking or credit network, a merchant’s accounts or nearly any other business that regularly records and stores your credit information.

Other identity thieves take a less direct route with a tactic called phishing. In one classic credit card phishing scheme, phishers send out emails and contacts purporting to be from a bank, finance company or other online service. They usually tell you that there was a problem with you account and ask you to click on a link in an email and re-enter your account information to verify it. When you do, you’re actually directed to a bogus page where you nicely supply the thieves with all the information that they need to convincingly pretend to be you.

Once they have that information, though, the phishers don’t use the credit card information that you provided to use your current credit cards. Instead, they use that information to apply for and establish credit card accounts in your name. Because they’ll usually uses a phony address and telephone number - using your information to change your address when necessary - the first time you realise that you’ve been phished may be when you apply for a cashback credit card of your own. That’s when you learn that you have at least one account that you never applied for. Once phishers have your identifying information, they can open bank accounts using your name, establish loans using your name and even sell your house without you even knowing that it’s on the market. In short, once phishers have what they need to pass themselves off as you, they can run you thousands of pounds into debt and totally ruin your credit - and if they’re really clever, you won’t even know it’s done.

Five Ways To Avoid Identity Theft and Credit Card Fraud

1. When making purchases use a Chip and PIN card - and never give your PIN number to anyone. It’s the best credit card solution to avoid credit card fraud with your existing credit.
2. Never use the link in an email to go to your financial institution’s web site. Open a new browser window and type the URL into the address bar.
3. Only buy online from reputable dealers that you trust.
4. The best credit card to use for online purchases is a stored value credit card. It won’t give out any information about you at all.
5. If you believe that you were a victim of identity theft, report it immediately. The sooner you take steps to clear it up, the less damage it will do.

When you want to apply for a cashback credit card or any other credit card, it pays to compare at moneyeverything.com. You can be sure that your information is safe when you compare and apply at moneyeverything.com, and that you’ll find the best deals available for your personal or business use.

Jon Francis has been involved in various areas with the world of finance and has a keen eye for a bargin! He has an in-depth knowledge of the credit card UK market and now helps others get the best from a credit card. For more information visit “http://www.moneyeverything.com”.

Identity Theft : They Got Him

His hard earned money? Gone. Creditors on his back everyday. Police knocking on his door. His family strained to the breaking point. He didn’t do anything wrong but my business partner’s life got turned upside down a few years back. He became a victim of what is now the fastest growing crime in the world. Identity theft.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, since 1999 over 27 million people in the US alone became victims of this
epidemic 10 million more last year. Harris InterActive,a
marketing research company, reports that between 2002 and
2003 roughly 19,178 people per day fell victim.

Your identity can be stolen in many ways. For my partner,
the thief gained access to his social security number and
address then applied for a series of loans in his name. When
the bills came due, guess who the creditors and law enforcement held accountable?

He and his family felt the full impact. Identity theft can
cripple and even destroy a person’s life. Not just the time loss
trying to recover your identity but also the out of pocket
expense. U.S.Treasury Secretary John Snow calls identity
theft “the greatest threat to consumers and far more
insidious and harmful to our national welfare than many
people realize.”

The internet doesn’t make it any better with its almost
limitless access to information but a great deal of identity
theft still comes from the offline world. Wherever it comes
from the goal stays the same. Get your personnal
information and steal what belongs to you for as long as
possible.

In many cases, this can lead to the victim filing for
bankruptcy or worse. As reported by the Orlando Sentinel,
one man whose identity got stolen recently spent 54 days in
jail before authorities realized their mistake.

Yet even when the thief finally gets caught, victims find
out all too often the worse part still lies ahead. The
recovery of their identity. For my partner, that meant never
ending battles with the same credit bureaus that previously
gave him good ratings.

They destroyed his credit almost overnight eventhough he did
everything they told him to get it restored. The agencies
refused to clear his record and instead, started sharing his
information with each other. His mortgage rates went
thru the roof. He paid more for everything but still got
declined. With all of this came the burden and fear of him
not knowing if he would ever recover his identity.

Six years later he finally did. He started working with a
company that within 90 days restored his credit. His
mortgage rate dropped and he went back to paying full price
for everything like the rest of us.

And like my partner, all of us risk becoming victims. In San
Antonio Texas, television station KENS 5 spoke with a man
convicted of identity theft who warned “Don’t take for
granted what you have because anybody could take it away I mean at the snap of a finger.”

He would know. The ways of stealing an identity have turned
this crime from nuisance to worldwide crisis.

Daryl Campbell is a technical and screenplay writer and CEO of Campbell Marketing, L.L.C. His website winthemarket.com, mini-sites, and articles submitted to ezines help the reader to grow and protect their internet marketing business.

Can you afford to hire professionals who will give you 24/7 protection, complete identity restoration and the best legal services? Identity thieves hope you answer no. Upset them by going to http://digbig.com/4cmcg now.

What is RSS and Its Marketing Benefits

It’s getting increasingly difficult to reach your targeted
audience these days by simply using email. Even if you have
a large ezine list there’s no guarantee your message will
be read. This is because today’s’ spam filters and
firewalls may block or delete your email before it even
reaches your intended audience. A great alternative
solution is to use RSS.

In this series of articles I will discuss:

1. What is RSS?
2. Benefits of RSS Marketing
3. What are RSS Feeds and Why You Need a RSS Reader?
4. RSS Tools You Need
5. How to Get Started With RSS
6. How to Create an RSS Feed for Your Web Site
7. How to Syndicate Your RSS Feed

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a new way
for people to publish and distribute their content ie news,
headlines, newsletters, articles etc. It’s a Web content
syndication format. An RSS file is written in a simple
language called XML. It is a lot like HTML, only simpler.
An XML file contains the information (Title, Description
and Link URL) that your audience will receive through a RSS
reader.

Here’s an example:

<.item>

<.title>Web Site Design | Hosting | Marketing<./title>

<.link>http://www.isitebuild.com<./link>

<.description>Affordable Web Design in Maryland<./description>
<./item>

(Please remove the period after the < to get the correct code.)

Syndication means you don’t have to visit each site
individually to see what’s new — you simply scan headlines
or brief article summaries and click to read the full text
Benefits of RSS Marketing

1. RSS is dynamic. When a publisher changes content,
consumers know it instantly.

2. Review a large number of sites in a very short
time ie you can review 20 headlines then choose
which one to read.

3. Distributes content to consumers who might be too
afraid to subscribe to your ezine - they can remain
anonymous and don’t need to subscribe or unsubscribe.

4. Bypass spam filters, firewalls, and avoid getting
viruses. Consumers opt-in to receive RSS feeds.

5. Can replace or be an additional channel to distribute
content besides using email to send your newsletter or
ezine.

6. Allows consumers to see some of the producer’s content
without needing to visit the site.

7. Provides fresh content for your web site - by adding
RSS to your web site you can automatically publish
other people’s content.

8. Increase search engine rankings - search engines
love web sites that provide fresh content on a
continuous basis. ie adding an article feed will
provide that fresh content.

9. Save time - instead of browsing multiple sites to
find information of interest, syndicated content can
be delivered directly through your RSS Reader.
You scan the headline that interests you, then click
to go directly to the source.

Read Part 2 of this article:

What are RSS Feeds and
Why You Need a RSS Reader (RSS Aggregator)?

http://www.isitebuild.com/rss/what-are-rss-feeds.htm

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com.
Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting.

Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

How did a Thief get my Name? Don’t be a Victim of Identity Theft

How do these people get my name? If you have a credit card, your name is sold to third parties, if you do not want this to happen, you must contact your credit card companies to inform them that you do not want your information sold. Check the privacy notice that comes with your bill. If you enter contests, your information becomes public. Also, when you buy a new product, and fill out the warranty cards, those companies sell that information you provide to other companies. Since when does your toaster manufacturer need to know you households’ annual income to extend a warranty on your toaster? Thieves use dumpster digging, phishing, and pharming to obtain your information. Things they steal from your trash include:

• Pre-approved credit card offers – they complete them and have the card sent to them at a different address
• Loan applications- they complete the application and have the money sent to a phony address.
• Bank statements- they then have your bank account number and can print counterfeit checks

Becky Palmer, a Consumer Credit Counselor, knew of someone who had their wallet stolen, and they used the credit card to buy a $5000.00 gift card at Wal mart, this then become very hard to trace.

People that are more at risk are senior citizens, people with disabilities and immigrants, but remember that everyone, including children are at risk. Senior citizens are home all day; they might get a phone call from a fake charity asking for money. Immigrants are desperate for credit, they may have just arrived in the US and know they need credit to do anything and are not aware of these scams. People with disabilities are home, and may become a victim of phone or online fraud. There have also been cases of home care providers taking advantage of their clients. Remember, it is not always a stranger that can steal someone’s identity. Did you know children can be victims of identity theft? This could affect or ruin their credit before they even are able to build up credit for themselves. There have been cases of parents using a child’s name for their electric bill or phone bill when they have bad credit or owe the utility company money. Thieves will obtain the social security number of these children then use that number to get credit cards and rack up purchases.

Some of these scammers will call you and say they are from a fictitious charity. They will offer to have your contribution automatically deducted from your checking account and will ask for your routing number, bank name, and account number. DO NOT GIVE OUT THIS INFORMATION! If you pick up a call from a telemarketer, ask them the following questions and if they are a fraud, they will hang up quickly.

• Who do you work for? They will try to give you the name of the fake charity here, so ask them “who pays your salary?”

• How much of my donation (percentage) goes to this charity and what is the rest of the money used for?” If they are for real, they can easily give you this information.

• What is the charity’s full name, address and phone number?

Once you have the above information you can check with the state attorney generals’ office or secretary of state to see if the charity is registered. Also check the charity’s rating thru the Better Business Bureau at www.give.org.

Michelle Dunn has over 17 years experience in credit and debt collection. She is the founder of Never Dunn Publishing, LLC, is a writer, consultant and the Editorial Advisor for Eli Financial Debt Collection Compliance Alert Newsletter. Michelle started M.A.D. Collection Agency and ran is successfully for 7 years. She owns and runs Credit & Collections.com a free online community for credit and business professionals.

She has written 5 books in her Collecting Money Series and is currently writing a book for the Streetwise Series, part of the Adams Media Corporation. For more information on Michelle’s services or to order any of her books please email her at michelle@michelledunn.com or visit http://www.michelledunn.com & http://www.credit-and-collections.com

RSS Support in New Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft Corp. says that the next version of its Windows operating system will have built-in support for RSS, an increasingly popular way to get news and other information channeled straight to a computer.

RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication, hasn’t broken into widespread use yet, but the world’s largest software maker believes it will become a mainstay.

“We really believe that RSS is key to how people will be using the Internet in the future,” said Megan Kidd, a Windows product manager.

In the long-delayed Windows upgrade, code-named Vista and expected to be released late next year, an RSS icon will appear in the Internet Explorer Web browser to make it easy for people to find, much like Apple Computer Inc. has done with its Safari browser.

Vista will store all data downloaded to a computer via RSS in a single place. It will maintain a central list of all of a computer user’s RSS subscriptions, from Web log entries to photos pulled from an online family picture gallery.

It will include a feature called simple list extensions that will let Web sites use RSS to publish lists of content that users can subscribe to, like a weekly run-down of chart-topping songs or an online gift registry.

Microsoft will make the list extensions technology available for free through a “creative commons” license, which lets the company retain some intellectual property rights while encouraging broader use of the technology.

Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research, said Microsoft’s foray into RSS is reminiscent of its rush to capture its share of the burgeoning Web browser market in the mid-1990s.

“With the World Wide Web, we had this vast informational system that came along where Windows was not required,” Wilcox said. “That posed a potentially serious threat to Microsoft’s Windows franchise. They responded by making Internet Explorer part of the operating system.”

Microsoft may argue that its RSS push is about improving technology for developers, content providers and consumers, Wilcox said, but “it’s also, I believe, responding to a potential competitive threat.”

Having RSS built into Vista could pose a serious threat to companies that sell RSS readers that siphon data from the Internet. But Kidd contends that Microsoft isn’t out to put anyone out of business.

Ken Savage is a Webmaster employee who writes about what is going on in the Tech industry usually days before it breaks to the rest of the world. He can be found at http://www.kensavage.com

7 Different Ways to Use RSS For Maximum Profits

RSS has been widely used for delivering news headlines by
websites like BBC and CNN. There has been a boom in the blogging world, thanks to RSS. However, this new way of syndicating content is not just limited to blogs and news websites. In the past few months we have seen a lot of companies are using RSS in many different ways. In this article, we see how and in what ways RSS can be used to derive convincing results..

1) Updates and Company News: Now companies no longer have to wait to provide new updates to their customers. Using RSS, they can instantly notify their customers who are subscribed to their feed. This saves a lot of valuable time as well as keeps the updates fresh.

2) Important Announcements: Announcing a new product or a new service, whatever it is, RSS can be aptly used to make announcements on the appropriate time. And since time is a crucial element when announcing a new product, RSS fills in the gap to make sure it turns out to be successful.

3) Affiliate Updates: If you have a successful product, I’m sure you also have an affiliate or a reseller program. And communicating with your affiliates forms a big part of successful affiliate advertising. RSS provides the right platform to send messages to your affiliates, whether it’s about motivating them or letting them know about higher
payments. Affiliates simply wont ignore your messages if they receive them when they really need your advice.

4) Software Downloads: Software vendors can provide their users with latest software updates and relevant downloads. Since new versions of software come out every other day, RSS makes it much easier to let the users know about new upgrades, just as they become available.

5) Audio Content: Podcasting feeds, which allow companies to make their audio available through iPods and other software, can be used to deliver audio content.This can be anything from
interviews to short recorded seminars. Even hosting your own
radio show is possible, as RSS gives direct access to your listeners.

6) Newsletter Publishing: Newsletters have been on the internet for a long time and have mostly been made available via email. But now you have more than one option to send out your
publication. RSS is gaining popularity in the Internet marketing
world, as publishers are using both email and RSS to deliver their ezine. Publishers can actually cross promote their newsletter in the RSS feed and vice versa. This allows them to not only reach their current subscribers in a new way but also helps them gain new subscribers.

7) RSS Autoresponders: Autoresponders have always been used by marketers to build a long term relationship with their subscribers. An autoresponder tends to put your marketing on auto pilot and also helps you get that most wanted sale. Now you can go ahead and schedule messages in your RSS feeds for a future date, so that your marketing takes care of itself. This can work wonders if you are selling a product, as it usually takes atleast 7 exposures before your prospect buys from you.

The above ideas are just a few of what you can actually do with
RSS. You are just limited by your imagination. So start experimenting with RSS feeds and see how you can tailor this technology according to your own needs.

Mustafa Khundmiri is the co-founder of http://www.rapidfeeds.com - A Free online service which helps anyone create, edit, publish and track RSS feeds and podcasts. Sign Up for your FREE account on http://www.rapidfeeds.com and also get a free subscription to “RSS Chronicle” - A Newsletter exclusively based on RSS and syndication.

RSS - Share your website to others and get Traffic

What is it ?

RSS is a family of XML file formats for Web syndication usually
used by news sites and weblogs. The abbreviation is used to
refer to the following standards:

* Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)

* RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)

* Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)

RSS technology allow internet users to subscribe to wesites that
provide RSS feed, This way you can share your websites content
(news or weblogs) by providing a RSS feed link for your visitors.

How to create RSS ?

You don’t have to learn XML to have RSS feed for your site,
www.feedburner.comcancreateyourRSSfeedfreely.JusttypeinyoursitesURLthenproceedtothenextsteps,andfeedburnerwillprovidealinktoyourRSSfeed,forexamplehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_nameNowputthefeedURLontoyourwebsiteInorderforvisitors/newsreaderstosubscribeyourfeed,youneedtoputHTMLcodeonanywhereyoulikewithinyourwebsitepage.-YourRSSfeedlink:<#ahref="http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_name"alt="Subscribetomyfeed"><#/a>-ForNewsGatorsubscriberstoaddyourfeedtotheirlist,addbelowcode:<#ahref="http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_name"><#/a>-ForMyYahoosubscribers:<#ahref="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_name"><#/a>-ForMyMSNsubscribers:<#ahref="http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id=rss&ut=http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_name&ru=http://your_site_url"><#/a>

-ForBloglinessubscribers:<#ahref="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_name"><#/a>-ForGoogleReadersubscribers:<#ahref="http://www.google.com/reader/preview/*/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_name"> src="http://static.flickr.com/34/64096104_5d2a30e4dd.jpg?v=0"
alt="Subscribe to Google Reader" border="0"><#/a>

That’s it, remove ‘ # ‘ on above code when you put them to your
HTML page and change
http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite_feed_nameandhttp://your_site_urltoyourownURL.YoucanseeexampleresultofthiscodeatEasyOnlineTipsattherightsideofthepage.TipsYoucanincreaseyourwebsitetrafficbysubmittingyourfeedtoRSSFeedsitessoreaderswillknowthatyoursiteexist,Beloware12sitesyoucanusetosubmityourfeedfree:1.DMOZ.orghttp://dmoz.org/add.html2.Technorati.comhttp://www.technorati.com/ping.html3.BlogDigger.comhttp://www.blogdigger.com/add.jsp4.Syndic8.comhttp://www.syndic8.com/suggest.php?Mode=data5.Feedster.comhttp://www.feedster.com/add.php6.CompleteRSS.comhttp://www.completerss.com/AddFeed.aspx7.NewsIsFree.comhttp://www.newsisfree.com/contact.php8.NewsTrove.comhttp://newstrove.com/suggest_site.html9.Postamihttp://www.postami.com/rss.finder/submit_feed.php10.BlogDex.nethttp://blogdex.net/add.asp11.Daypophttp://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm12.Genecast.comhttp://www.genecast.com/news/create.jsp

Update Your Websites Content ‘Automatically’ 24/7 Using RSS(Real Simple Syndication) and RSS Feeds

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is the newest form of content syndication to hit the Internet and is widely becoming the best known way online to deliver fresh targeted content to your website(s) to whatever audience you’re targeting 24/7/365.

Now for those of you who aren’t quite up to speed on “RSS” here’s the basic definition — RSS is an acronym for “Real Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”, and the .XML extension is the format used for distributing your news headlines via the Web, which is known as “Syndication”.

“Syndication” is where the TRUE power of RSS is unleashed, getting your message or information across the web in an INSTANT to websites, your subscribers and/or readers.

Why is this such Good News for website owners who publish content on a Daily or Weekly basis for there audiences?

Simple.

By having “RSS” plugged into your website with targeted RSS feeds you’ll now have an endless supply of Fresh targeted content delivered to your website for your visitors and/or subscribers 24/7/365 without you ever having to lift a finger.

Just imagine how much time what would save you and how it would allow you to focus on other important tasks related to your business.

Time is something we are always fighting for and since web surfers primarily come online in search of ‘Information’ it can be a very time consuming ordeal to deal with on a Daily or Weekly basis.

The other great thing about “RSS” is it’ll keep the ‘Search Engine Spiders’ coming back more frequently since “RSS” automatically updates your selected feeds ‘Daily’ with Fresh targeted content.

And if you know anything about Search Engines then you’ll know that they LOVE fresh content to digest.

Now that you have a general idea of what “RSS” can do for you and your website(s), your probably wondering how you can take advantage of this right now and where to find these ever so valuable ‘RSS Feeds’.

The answer is simple — ‘Article Directories’.

Now, not all ‘Article Directories’ have adopted “RSS” at this point But they will soon catch on once they see the value RSS offers there publishers(you) and readers.

Below I have listed a few ‘Article Directories’ offering RSS feeds in every category under the sun for you to choose from.

Article99.com

GoArticles.com

EzineArticles.com

Now, all you need to get your hands on(if you don’t already) is a “RSS Reader Script” and have it installed on your server so that you can display the ‘RSS Feeds’ on your website(s).

All you have to do is a simple search on Google using the keyword “RSS Reader Script”.

Once you’ve done all that and updated your website(s) pages with your RSS code, you can now just sit back, relax and let RSS(Real Simple Syndication) do all the work for you 24/7/365 while you go focus on other important tasks.

About The Author:

Looking for MORE Information or Webmaster Resources on RSS and RSS Feeds? Look NO Further! Go shop Cory Threlfall’s TOP Rated CBmall that carries over 10,000 of the Internets BEST ‘Information Products’ available Online. rss and rss feeds

Get Tons of Free Traffic using FeedBuruner®

Unlike web site visitors who may have arrived at content via
completely different paths like a search, a random link or a
daily visit, RSS subscribers make up a very explicit demographic
of people who have expressed a specific and regular interest in
a feed’s content. No other online medium offers the ability to
communicate as regularly with such a measurable and growing
content subscriber base.

In January of 2005, FeedBurner publishers reached 500,000
subscribers. Less than a year later, there are nearly 6 million
worldwide subscribers to FeedBurner-managed feeds. No other feed
management service reaches as many people on behalf of as many
publishers across as many feed clients and aggregators.

With a full range of free services to manage your feed :

1. Publicize: Create awareness for your feed, make it
sing and dance.

    * PingShot: Automatically notify directories and
web-based aggregators when you publish new content in your feed.

    * Email Subscription: Give subscribers the
convenience of receiving your feed content updates via email.
Powered by FeedBlitz.

* MyBrand: Put your feeds front and center. Serve them
from your own domain.

* BuzzBoost: Have feed, will travel. BuzzBoost
republishes your burned feed’s content as go-anywhere HTML.

* Headline Animator: Promote the most recent content in
your feed using this compact, dynamically generated graphic.
This is my favourite.

* FeedCount: Publicize your circulation statistics
directly on your blog (or anywhere else you can post HTML). This
also is my favourite.

2.Optimize: Ensure your feed displays correctly, manage
traffic spikes and more.

* FeedFlare: Give your subscribers easy ways to email,
tag, share, and act on the content you publish.

* SmartFeed™: Reach the widest possible audience by
making sure your feed works in any reader.

* Browser Friendly: Be kind to users who view your feed
in a browser. Inform them about your feed’s content and offer
options for easier subscription.

* SmartCast™: Enable any feed for podcasting from any
blogging tool or platform.

* SmartFeed™ Mobile Server: Extend subscriber reach with
on-the-fly transcoding of your feed for any mobile device.

* Link and Photos Splicers: Combine collected feeds and
photos from del.icio.us, Flickr and other services.

3. Analyze: Track and monitor usage patterns, circulation
trends, etc.

* Standard Stats: Complimentary tracking service provides
feed circulation, aggregator types and clickthroughs.

* TotalStats: Learn which content items are heavily read
and how they affect circulation and understand how widely
content is syndicated.

4. Monetize: Kick your content off the couch and put it
to work.

* FeedBurner Ad Network: Join the likes of SmartMoney,
CIO, Computerworld, Gawker and others in our expanding network.

* Google AdSense for feeds: Insert contextually
appropriate advertising in your feed using Google AdSense for
feeds.

Finally, I hope you liked it and for more information about this
marvellous services, you visit
http://feeds.feedburner.com/affiliateZone

How Anti Spam Software Works

It was not too long ago that email mailboxes were so full of junk mail and spam that they threatened to render electronic communication useless. When you opened up your email you were bombarded with poorly written advertisements for $ex, V!agra, and tons of other intentionally misspelled products, designed to evade any spam blocking devices. Those interested in consumer protection knew the ultimate goal, to eliminate and block spam, but as soon as they created a product designed to do just that, the spammers evaded their efforts by getting more creative. That is, until modern anti spam software was developed. Antispam software comes in a variety of forms, with the obvious ultimate intent of stopping unwanted emails from reaching you.

Blacklist

One of the primary anti spam methods is known as blacklisting. This software identifies the IP address of the spam sender, and then communicates with the Internet Service Provider of the sender and instructs the ISP to block mail from that IP address to your email account. In theory this is a fool proof solution. The reality, however, is that there is a lot of money to be made in spamming, so forcing a spammer to switch his IP address frequently is not too high a price to pay to evade blocking. That said, this practice does, over time, start to close down doors to spammers and all but eliminates amateur spammers who do not have the capability to frequently switch IPs.

Spam Votes

Many individuals who frequently use their email accounts will be familiar with this device. Spam voting software works through the participation of users. When you receive email you have the option of classifying it as spam, usually by pushing a button which says, unsurprisingly, ‘spam’. Once enough people classify a piece of mail or an IP as spam it falls in trust until ultimately it becomes completely blocked from addresses.

Profiling

Profiling involves learning the common characteristics of spammers and spam mail. It is software that looks for things like bugs, invalid message ID’s and other traits and uses these characteristics to evaluate incoming pieces of mail. Each piece of mail is then given a score depending upon how it fares against these criteria. The user is then given the option of how high or how low to set the bar with regard to which emails are let in. This method has been shown to be immensely effective against amateur spammers and many professional spammers. However, it relies upon a ready team of professionals to identify new traits used by spammers and to incorporate those traits into the profiling algorithms.

Bayesian Filtering

The most promising spam blocking software follows no rules. Rather, it constantly learns new techniques to fight spam by scanning the mail you’ve read and comparing it to the mail that you have rejected. This highly sophisticated software uses the data that it gleans from thousands of users to identify which items are spam and which are not. It then has the capability to adjust its standards to your particular preferences. Over time, it becomes adept at sending you only the emails that you want, and blocking the emails that you do not.

Sara Anderwahl recommends that you visit www.barracudanetworks.com for more information on anti spam software.