Even though spam is well known by most computer users today, many people forget to follow the basic safeguards to protect their email accounts from spam. Here are some basic ways that you can keep your spam, junk mail and bulk mail to a minimum...

Do not give out your email as your "junk" mail address. This may cause your information to be given out without your knowledge to other sources.

Avoid posting your email information on newsgroups or other discussion boards. Many mailers harvest email addresses from these sources.

Once you've been "spammed" by someone you don't know, do not reply to the sender, even to request that your address be removed from their list. Sometimes these mailers use your "remove" request to identify you as an active target and you will get more spam, not less.

Many email services and email programs can automatically deflect spam (a.k.a. bulk mail) away from your Inbox. Check the options in your email service or program to see if any built-in spam, junk mail, or bulk mail filtering is built-in, and make sure they are activated. Outlook Express does not have spam filtering, but Outlook does have some limited junk mail filtering abilities built-in. Windows Mail (on Windows Vista) has great built-in antispam features, you can even block entire countries or regions. Webmail sites like Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail have built-in spam filters, make sure they are turned on.

Many email services or programs let you set up filters so that certain messages (such as those that include certain words or are from a particular individual) are sent directly to your Trash folder. This is worth exploring if you don't have any built-in spam filtering features. In Outlook Express, you would have to create your own filters to keep spam from entering your inbox. You can also make custom filters in most webmail accounts as well.