What it is:

 Think of junk e-mail as just as you would junk mail in your home mailbox. Whenever you register for a vehicle, apply for a credit card or buy a new home, it seems that your mailbox and phone lines get infiltrated with related junk mail and phone calls from telemarketers.

Here are some ways that spam can find you:

• Registering on certain Websites for a membership subscription, newsletter, prize, or application. Your e-mail address may then be sold to a third party marketing company who will add you to their e-mail mailing list.
• Publishing articles in online newsgroups or forums
• Listing your e-mail address on Websites such as your company or family’s contact info page.
• Having a catch-all account

Some options for protection:

• Create an alternate spam email account and then use that account name when signing up for things that require an email address.
• Install spam filtering software which will allow you to block out e-mails that contain specific words, phrases or subjects. Example “Check out what I did this weekend”
• Use Microsoft Outlook Junk Mail box feature, which allows you to flag, and automatically filter unwanted junk e-mails into a separate folder, which gets deleted.
• Change your e-mail address and only notify people in your address book of your new address. Example mymail@mail.com to myothermail@mail.com. All of the junk e-mails that were going to the old e-mail address won’t follow you to the new e-mail address.