As if the ever increasing intensity of spam was not enough to shatter the confidence of email users, the dangers of computer virus through unsolicited messages is making things worse. The first national standard was set against all bulk emails which belonged to the commercial category and were unsolicited, when President Bush signed the Can Spam bill in December 2003.

The bill was naturally approved and voted by the Senate by a vote 97 to 0 and in essence stops a sender from sending unsolicited bulk commercial emails using tools like dictionaries for generating such mailers and hiding their identities via false return addresses. More over, these emails can not carry a subject line which is deceptive and must have an opt out provision. The law prevents the sender from accessing addresses from websites and any violation of the law can entail imprisonment up to one year.

A major point to ponder is that these days the there are various countries of origin for spam and they are larger in numbers. Such spam is harder to combat because of their alien origin. These problems are difficult to handle, though the laws may sound good since the internet knows no country barriers. Is there any way out of the situation? Here are the best 5 strategies against spam:

Number 1: Avoid displaying your email address on the net at all cost. ‘Spam spiders’ are specialized products which hunt for email address on the net for using as a mailing list later. If the word ’spam spider’ triggers your interest do a search for this word on the net, the results might just shock you. Interestingly, there is a site, WebPoison.org, which is an open source project geared to fight Internet ’spambots’ and ’spam spiders’, by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addresses.

Number 2: Get yourself a software which blocks spam. Chances are that you might decide to go in for the professional version but whatever you do getting the software is a must since it would help you save plenty of time. While the soft certainly does not claim to provide guaranteed results, it can still be dependable but remember that some manual setting could be needed to bar some particular types of emails.

Number 3: Start to use more than one email addresses. Having plenty of email addresses could mean that you use them for specific communications and have another few as back ups. It would be like giving your cell phone number to your best friends and the business number to everyone else.

Number 4: A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Spammers find it difficult to reach you through companies as they use filters to block such mail. Try looking at Firewall vendors for such services.

Number 5: Did you know that email service providers are now offering ‘bulk mail’ baskets? The concept is simple. What you do when you receive email from any stranger, put them in a bulk email pile and then allow it to move into your circle. All software which blocks spam work with the same logic but having a couple of more layers is what makes the difference so another look may be necessary.