Spam, spam, spam, spam . . .

E - MAIL SPAM












• Spam is "unsolicited bulk email"
• Email is cheap/free way to advertise to millions
• Spam filters are at best unreliable
• Don't get your name on the lists in the first place!

The fact that sending multiple emails is free or extremely cheap has led to large amounts of junk
email, or spam, being sent across the Internet. It's possible to buy lists containing millions of
email addresses known to be active, which can be used by companies to send advertisements
and marketing information. Spamming is generally frowned upon in the Internet community at
large, and it's particularly bad practice to continually spam the same email addresses over and
again without giving the recipients a chance to opt out of the list. However, there are many
unscrupulous companies that do this; sometimes they will use your request to opt out of the
mailshot as verification that your address is “live”. There's no easy way to deal with spam, except
to ignore it and delete it as it arrives.
• Investigate the University's spam-filtering service [http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/email/
spam.shtml]. It won't get rid of all the spam, but will reduce it.
• Be careful where you type your email address, especially when creating web pages, as
spammers use 'address harvester' programs to scour the Web for active addresses.
• Don't give your address to unknown web providers or advertisers.
• Make sure you check the “no further email” box when signing up to any new service, if there
is one
• If you have to put your email address on the web, make it a non-machine-readable form, for
example use G.B.Stringer <at> exeter <dot> ac <dot> uk or some other
only-human-interpretable form
There are some general guidelines on dealing with spam in your University email, and lots of
other useful advice, on the IT Services email page [http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/email/index.php].
Emoticons and Acronyms
• Simple abbreviations for complex emotions?
• Well used acronyms are part of Internet culture
• Smileys often now used ironically
In the early days of email, people quickly discovered the limitations of a textual medium to
convey very personal, emotional thoughts. To try to provide shortcuts to emotional language,
smileys were born. Intended to be “read” sideways-on, they provided a substitute for facial
expression, albeit in a very primitive fashion

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