E-mail: Junk or Useful?

Hi Fishin:

I use Outlook Express. I don't get much junk mail anymore because I've blocked most of it. However, there are still those who use a different address each time, which I don't think anything can be done about.

All my personal e'mail friends are highlighted in color, so I know the mail is from a friend.

If I don't recognize the sender, it gets deleted.

On Outlook Express, I rarely get spam. The only thing that I subscribe to there is serious stuff, like banks, and they don't sell their mailing lists to pornographers. On my Hotmail Account, which I use for corresponding with Abuzzards and A2Kers, I rarely get spam, because I don't put any subscriptions there.

My Yahoo account is another story. They put bulk mail in a special folder. You are permitted to block 100 addresses, and write to them about others, which they are supposed to put into your bulk folder. Anyhow, I reached my limit, so I deleted all my blocked mail, and the spam started again, fast and furious!

Two of my personal accounts are actually 90% junk but, delete works well and Im quick so, its not too annoying really...I guess...kinda..humph!
My hotmail account is slowly starting to get the stupid mail but, still isnt so bad...maybe 75% of what I want, the rest is just silly
Work is actually 98% good work related stuff, and with a smaller company now I dont get those annoying..to everyone in the company and every division senseless email...its kind of nice

I just reached my Yahoo block limit today, Phoenix. Oy. I have an Earthlink account that I rarely use and I'm thinking of up and changing over because of the spam deluge on Yahoo. I did pretty well for a while and then slipped -- I entered my real address on some online quiz. (I almost always use a fake address for that kind of thing) and it's been an exponential increase. Grrrrrrrr.

Probably 60% of my email is junk. I delete a lot of it without looking, but I do occasionally get real emails from people whose names I don't recognize. Almost deleted one earlier today from a high school friend whose last name (she's married) I'd forgotten.

Something's gotta give, technology-wise or regulation-wise, as it's become utterly ridiculous. (The amount of spam clogging cyberspace.)

I get spam on Hotmail and on Yahoo. It's worse on Hotmail. What makes me laugh is that I get spam on one Hotmail account that I have never used and never given out to anyone. So that one's being hit by spambots which either are using random names or are just going down a list.

Yahoo is generally better but that may be because I pay for Yahoo in order to have extra storage.

I get nearly no spam on Outlook Express. I don't sign up for too many things with that account, and that's why. We are signed up for Amazon through it, so that tells me that Amazon does as they say and doesn't sell email addresses.

I have two Hotmail accounts. One of them is the original account I started when I got a computer. I didn't realize then that whenever you sign up anywhere, you end up with all manner of junk mail. That account is now being used exclusively for when I sign up on a site. I get the usual regiration confirmation stuff and lots of junk mail. Also, I never gave my new Hotmail address to those who send mostly jokes, so I get those in there too. I call it my junk account and do a lot of deleting there.

The other Hotmail account I use mostly for people I meet on the internet since one can use any name in the world on those things. I do use my first name but not my last. It's just a security thing. I rarely get junk in that account and when I do, I block it.

My other e-mail account is through Outlook Express and it came with my Cable subscription. I use that mostly for family and close friends. I never get junk there.

I agree that something needs to be done about the spammers!

One account I have, based at work, recently exploded with spam. It was almost scary. Then I set up filters, and that's cut down on the problem. Some of it is kind of ingenious, but very little. It would be fun to list the clever subject lines that spammers use to whet our interest, like:

Here's the information you requested

I've been looking for you!

[and my favorite:]

Hi!

The "Re:" line is big now, too. "Re: info", that kind of thing. You wonder, "did I write to some company asking for info?"

During the holidays here Ive noticed alot of "confirmation of your order" lines...cracked me up

The opening lines are good, too. As in: "If you're like me, you've tried everything to lose weight..."

Only I haven't...

The regular spam I'm used to and I've pretty much just learned to ignore it. The stuff that really kills me is stuff that people think is "cute" so they forward it.

My phone number changed and one of my sister's sent an e-mail asking for the new number which I replied with. Apparently my reply somehow incdciated that I wanted to be signed up on her "Thought of the Day" e-mail list so every morning I get one from her (I sent her a response today asking her to knock it off...).

Co-workers seem to want to do the same thing. Every minor event is now reson to send an e-mail to the entire company. I live just outside of Boston and my company is out of Los Angeles and I get e-mails mentioning that somone left their car headlights on out in the parking lot in CA or that "Mary" made cookies last night and left a basket of them at the Dayton, Ohio office if I should be interested in trying them. I spend more time deleting this kind of junk than anything else. ARRGH!

Feel for ya fishin...had a company that was all over the US and had the same types of emails...also the dorks who dont know how to do anything but reply to all.

Ive noticed that with more and more people getting on line and enjoying what is to be had..and the funnies and all that...theres some I get ALL THE TIME, IVE SEEN A MILLION TIMES...but, I try to remember that someone else is new and just wants to make sure everyone else is happy as well, or maybe they're just neurotic...I dont know....again...delete is a fabulous tool. When you've been on long enough...you can figure out what the email will contain by the subject line on most of those as well.

Most of my mail is junk. I really have to start blocking some of this stuff.

As my ole mom used to say if it wasn't my occupant mail I wouldn't hardly get any mail at all. Spam and junk e-mail I never get any. Once in a blue moon someone forwards something to me. When I was working there were e-mails etc., but better e-mail that a ton of paper.

Email jokes are one of the banes of my existence. They're rarely funny--so much of humor has to do with the delivery and it takes a real talent to write funny stuff. And the creators of these jokes don't have it. Yet there are folks--and we all have such friends and relatives--who feel compelled to pass them around...

I get jokes from a number of people. When I send them out, if they are good, I am very careful of which joke to send to whom. There are some people who just don't seem to know their "audience".