Managing Spam through ‘virtual’ mailboxes
Everyone gets Spam sooner or later. Anyone who’s given out a business card, bought or registered anything on-line or has an address visible on their web site is almost certain to receive Spam at some time. The more you’re active on the web and e-mail, the more Spam you’re likely to get.
There are ways of limiting the problem though.
One way is to protect your main e-mail address(es) but giving out a ‘disposable’ or ‘virtual’ address instead.
If you have control of your web site hosting and/or e-mail facilities you can create what’s known as ‘forwarding addresses’. These appear as normal e-mail addresses but don’t have a real mailbox behind them. They simply ‘redirect’ to a real e-mail id and mailbox.
For example, I can create a mail id info@clarihon.co.uk. If I create it as a ‘virtual’ or ‘forwarding’ address, I can redirect mail to this new address on to my REAL address, nigel@clarihon.co.uk. That way I only have to check one mailbox but receive from 2 mail ids. I can then give the info@clarihon.co.uk address out to the wide world and keep my main address for sending and to give to trusted people.
At some time though, the info@clarihon.co.uk address will get into the hands of Spammers and I’ll start to get Spam.
Assuming I can make the change easily on my web site and my e-mail accounts, all I have to do is delete info@clarihon.co.uk and create info1@clarihon.co.uk, or admin@clarihon.co.uk etc.
I can also create different ‘virtual’ or ‘forwarding’ addresses for different aspects of my business and on-line dealings. One for shopping online (shopping@clarihon.co.uk), one for registering at on-line business directories (directory@clarihon.co.uk) and so on.
I can also create one for specific people or companies I deal with – like amazon@clarihon.co.uk for example. That way, if I get Spam via that address I’ll know where the Spammers got it from!
Of course, having a good Spam filter will reduce much of the hassle you get and it depends on how much of a problem Spam is for you but the use of ‘virtual’ or ‘forwarding’ e-mail addresses is another string to your anti-Spam bow.
