On this page:

• About spam (including email hoaxes and urban legends)
• Reduce the amount of spam you receive

About spam

Spam is unsolicited email or junk email. Spam is, unfortunately, an abuse of the Internet that you - the end user - ultimately pay for. Not only can spam irritate, but spam can also cause a system outage when excess email clogs up the email servers, preventing non-spam email from getting through. To learn more about spam, go to a search engine, such as  www.google.com, and search for spam.

Email hoaxes and urban legends

There are a lot of email hoaxes and urban legends being passed around via email. Check one of these sites to see if an email you received is a hoax or urban legend, so that you are not fooled into forwarding these emails and inadvertently sending spam (unsolicited email) to your friends, family, and colleagues:

•  www.scambusters.org Urban Legends and Hoaxes Resource Center - a Web site that you can search to find out if an email you received is an urban legend
•  www.truthorfiction.com - a Web site that lists many email hoaxes

Reduce the amount of spam you receive

Learn what BC is doing to address problems with spam.

You can help reduce the amount of spam you receive:

• Turn on BC's Spam Control service for your BC email account. Learn more about BC's Spam Control service, including how to turn it on.
• When you receive unwanted email, do not reply to the email, even if it is just to say, "stop emailing me." When you reply, you are actually confirming that your email address is valid, and then you may receive additional emails from the solicitor. Also, when you reply and choose "reply to all" all of the other innocent people who received the original unwanted email are receiving yet another unwanted email - your reply.
• When you receive unwanted email from a listserv or from a Campus Group, do not reply to the list. Remember that with most lists, every message to the list is received by all members of the list. Responding generates more unwanted email and further proliferates the problem.
• Block email from a specific sender or domain. Keep in mind that the "from" address on electronic mail can be easily forged or spoofed. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware that emails you receive may not always be from the purported sender.
• Use caution when disclosing your email address. There are several ways spam can enter your Inbox; some spam violators buy email address lists from Web sites you are registered with or where you entered a sweepstakes contest; some send email to different variations of email addresses; some search the Internet white pages, guest books, resume postings, etc. Make sure to read the Privacy Policy and Terms before entering a sweepstakes contest or registering your email address and personal information with a Web site. Be very careful about Web sites that do not explain how your information is used.
• Set up rules to filter out unwanted messages. Most email programs allow this. Put them in a separate folder you can review before deleting. It is not easy to create rules, choosing the vocabulary and exceptions that will be most effective, but this is your first line of defense. Only you know what you need blocked. Central filtering may be too broad in scope and can all too easily eliminate valid email. Learn how to set up Outlook 2002 to automatically filter spam.

In general, you should find that these measures filter out most spam. However, if you find that you are repetitively receiving a lot of junk email, please report the spam.