* The best defense against these annoying e-mails is to limit the number of parties you give your e-mail address to. If you sign up for mailing lists, e-zines, online services, program updates, web-site update notifications, etc., etc., you need to be aware of the privacy policies of the websites involved. When you use online services like the ones listed above, make sure to read the agreements and privacy policies thoroughly. If they do not give your personal information out to third parties, they will say so. Many of them give you choices about what types of companies you would like them to share your personal information with. Make sure you check (or un-check) the appropriate boxes to protect your personal information, which includes your e-mail address.
* If you love signing up for online services but hate Spam, you may want to sign up for a free internet-based e-mail account. These accounts are available through many different sites. Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and Lycos Mail are some good examples. By using an internet-based e-mail account for online services, you protect your personal e-mail account from a bombardment of unwanted mail. Since internet-based e-mail accounts don't download e-mail into your computer system, you will also have the added bonus of not having to wait while a large amount of e-mail is transferred from an e-mail server into your machine. Beware, though, you can still get computer viruses via attachments in internet-based e-mail programs. If you chose to set up an internet-based e-mail account, keep in mind that your username and password are private. MWSI has no record of this information, so it is important that you either choose easy-to-remember usernames/passwords, or write down this information for future reference. Also, if you choose to use an internet-based e-mail account as your primary e-mail address and you stop using your MWSI e-mail account, you should submit your new e-mail address to us so we can contact you with late/disconnect notices, virus alerts, maintenance schedules and other important account information.
* If you sign up for e-zines (online magazines), make sure you only sign up for topics you are interested in and plan to read about regularly.
* If you sign up for a service and then discontinue its use, or if you are receiving unsolicited e-mail, try to have your name removed from their mailing list. Most e-zines and mailing lists give instructions for discontinuing their services at the bottom of each e-mail they send out. Read through your "junk" e-mail and discontinue the services you aren't interested in.
* Block the repeated offenders. If you've requested to be taken off mailing lists, or if there is no way to request an end to annoying e-mails, block those senders from your inbox. Open up your Outlook Express program, click on "Tools" (or Actions, depending on the version you are using) "Options" and "Block Sender" (or Junk Mail). You can add any offenders to the block list. E-mails sent from the blocked addresses will still be downloaded into your e-mail program, but they will bypass your in-box and go directly to your deleted items folder.
* If all else fails, you can always change your
e-mail address. You can do this by either setting up a new e-mail account and
deleting the old e-mail account, or, if you are already using all of your
additional e-mail accounts, you can change the over-spammed e-mail address.
Keep in mind when changing your e-mail address, you will need to notify the
people you want to have your e-mail address.
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