Here at OtherInbox HQ we have been watching the media response to the Epsilon data breach and it reminds us of a primer we wrote a while back about the many ways SPAM can find its way to you. (Dunno bout you but the first time I saw a Viagra email in my inbox, I thought an ex was playing a cruel joke on me…)

We see about 5 ways that spammers get their spammy clutches on our email addys.

1- We are mislead. We give our email address to a website and they send us email we did not expect.

-This happens a lot and it is often our own fault. By not reading the fine print, we can find ourselves signing up for a slew of other senders along with the things we actually do want to receive. Watch for pre-checked boxes and reverse opt ins too. If the tactic works, marketers will use em.

2- We are betrayed. We give our email address to a website and they sell it to other websites.

-Lead generation, co-registration, data append.. whatever the term and whatever the method, the selling and buying of personal information is a very lucrative industry! When we are told about it up front, it can be quite helpful if the shared sites are getting us to info we need or want but it does not always happen that way! Not sure about the site you are about to share your info with? Try OIB.ME,  a FREE user curated resource we set up so you can review and share info about web marketers email practices. We see it all at OIB.ME …. so before you sign up for an online newsletter or notification, check out what other folks have to say about that sender!

3- We are the spoils of war. We give our email address to a website and it gets hacked.

As we said above, the market for personal information is very hot! So sometimes people take the info against our will. This is what happened to Epsilon. This can be tracked if the hacked organization is upfront about it and does a good job of notifying affected consumers. Unfortunately, the data can also be “sneakernetted” by an employee with little to no way of knowing how it got breached. Once in a previous job, I was blatantly asked if I would be willing to “personally sell” a portion of SXSW’s music mailing list. Ummm, no.

4-We are unlucky.  Someone’s computer gets a virus and we are in their address book.

This is one of the worst and is pretty difficult to track down! A lot of viral mechanisms are set to do exactly the following; Virus enters your computer. Virus finds address book. Virus sends out a tremendous number of spam messages from your computer which is now a host machine. You can try to remove the virus but your computer is now part of a network of spam bots. You can unplug it but the spam bots might then try to use your own body for energy….Yep kinda like “The Matrix.”

5- We are innocent bystanders. We post our email address on a website somewhere and spammers “harvested” it off the web.

Harvesting email addys off of the internet is quite a chore! (I’ve done it with a simple Apple Automator script) It is impossible to track down since it is really a low res operation but there is a solution. Don’t put your email addy online. If you do, at least make sure it is not your primary email address. Try this-  Google your email address. Wowzers huh? Fix it with a catch all or a pseudo email addy! Done.

So sure, spam is an ongoing problem… but we are not completely powerless even when there are breaches. So why all the hubbub? Likely because we are already on the edge of our seats… waiting for some sort of data apocalypse.

And for some, maybe it has already come! If you live in Texas (like we do) you should know the state records have been compromised! That. Is. Scary. But it brings about a great question- Who is our info safe with if a state agency cannot keep it under control?

Let us know about your experience with spammy email! Did you get any funky emails after Epsilon? Or even better, add a review on OIB.ME so others can know we took one for the team, together!

Twitter – Facebook- Email – *Ping us!

The bottom line is spam copy offers something that is needed. It could be anything! Maybe the possible reward outweighs the risk for this folk?

I looked around the office and asked “What would happen if we took the bait for all of us? What if we sacrificed our good name by actually responding to spam and ordering something… just to see what happened?” Crickets. Nobody was listening. They were heads down with our next big thing… Hint- AOL.

I’d have to try this myself. I started looking through the spam filter on my Gmail account and was getting ready to pull the trigger. I had it all figured out. I would set-up a gift card for payment, order something and have it sent to the office.

Then I’d write a blog post about it, I said. It’ll be great, I said. I’ll be an internet hero, I said.

Luckily, someone forwarded me a great article from the Toronto Star titled, “Canada no longer synonymous with spam.” It turns out they did exactly what I had been planning.

According to the article, Canada has “been unfairly maligned as some of the world’s worst peddlers of spam”. The article states that out of 300 MILLION daily spam messages sent out daily, 85 percent were linked to pharmaceuticals and often linked to a company called “Canadian Pharmacy.”

The article goes on to talk about the recent demise in global spam and how it appears there has been a recent restructuring in strategy. That’s right, strategy!

Note- What I would not give to sit in a spammers strategy meeting!

Maybe it went something like this-
Mr. Spamit- “We need to make da monies sending da spams.”
Mr. Spamit’s crony- “Jes, but wot is most effective lure for 2011, boss?”
Mr. Spamit- “Kittens. In 2011, we lure dem with Kittens.”

Note- Don’t click on the above. You’ll have ordered 10 kittens.

The best thing about the article (in addition to a mysterious “Stern” who shows up with no introduction or proper attribution) is how they actually respond to a spam message ordering Viagra. Yep, they clicked so we did not have to!

From the article-
“They sent a staffer to visit a Toronto address given as the company’s headquarters, which turned out to be a Subway sandwich shop in a strip mall. Surprisingly, a package did eventually arrive in the mail — its postage indicated it came from Mumbai — and inside a battered envelope was a plastic bag containing a few blue pills. A toxicology report revealed they were not real Viagra.”

LOL! A Subway sandwich shop! I guess spam IS on the menu after all.

They tried it again and got similarly strange results.
“A second order placed through another email resulted in a package arriving from Shanghai, with a number of pills taped inside a magazine. They also were not legitimate Viagra pills but did contain the active ingredient in the drug.”

So there you have it! Thanks to the Toronto Star and the mysterious Mr. (or Ms.) Stern for taking it on the chin for us all. Now, we can all rest assured that if it sounds too good to be true, don’t click on it! Even if the lure is kute Kanadian Kittenz.

What is the worst spam offer you have ever seen? Share below, on Facebook or tweet us about it!

Both are trying to persuade, inform or sell you something. Both can make checking your email a chore. And of course, both are delicious when served between two pieces of bread with some lettuce. Yum!

Wait… scratch that. Let’s break it down into tiny, tasty morsels.

SPAM

We know a lot about spam. By definition, spam is unsolicited email notifications.

You did not ask for it, it just shows up like a pushy party crasher, offering you cheap meds, vacation deals and more. Our initial product Defender was somewhat of an invisible shield for spam! It allowed a user multiple email addresses to combat spammers at the point of acquisition. When someone asked for your email, you made one up on the spot and then you could easily keep track of who sold your name. In other words, if you gave your email addy to a restaurant and then noticed an email from them concerning male, ahem, “enhancement”, you knew right away that they had a breach or just flat out sold your name and you could block them easily! Empowering? Yes. Awesome? Totally! But, as often happens in science fiction, the machines got smarter, so we had to follow suit and create something new…. Yep, Organizer but we will come back to that.

Gmail, AOL, Yahoo! and other email providers all made spam a top priority! Senders? Blocked. IP addresses? Blacklisted. Criminal keystrokes? Curbed. 

You may have noticed they were slowed. Perhaps you thought to yourself-

“Hey! Whatever happened to that Nigerian Prince? I guess he found help with that bank transfer. Good for him!”

Well, don’t be too concerned for him, he is still looking for help. Your webmail provider just has him looking elsewhere! (Thanks guys.)

The problem with spam is… it’s very profitable. It goes out. People click. Simple as that, supply and demand. So, as I mentioned above, while spam might NOT be dead, it is somewhat under control.

So why are people’s inboxes still under barrage? Why do we still need help with the endless flow of messages coming at us? It’s called bacn, and we asked for it!

BACN
Bacn is all those things we sign up for. By definition, bacn is solicited email notifications. And bacn is good for us.

In a lot of ways, bacn is the most basic transactional currency of the web. It’s the newsletter from your kid’s school, the mortgage notification, the receipt from Zappos, the Twitter updates, the authorization for new accounts and all those things we want and need to make the web work for us. In short, your email notifications are how you know things are working as you dictate. Unlike spam, if your bacn stops… EVENTUALLY YOU WILL NOTICE!

So… We like to sign up for things. So, we get a lot of bacn. Deliciously important things, but not as important as the email from your friend, boss, kids, or, you know, things with a pulse! 
But it all goes to the same place. Your inbox.

So what is the best way to handle the flow? Filters of course!
Filters allow you to channel your e-mails into designated folders. They gather things according to rules that you set up in advance. But rules can change. ANY number of things may affect your rules-  you’ll add new senders, or senders change their names or the senders change their subject lines, the list goes on. Filters can be a bummer to stay on top of even for the most geekiest of geeks…. Trust me on this one.

Organizer is a great way to avoid constantly re-arranging your rules and getting your email to work the way you like. I mean, that’s why we built it as such and why nearly three-quarters of a million people agree!

But I digress- This post is about the virtual pork in our inbox. Ahem, so-

Let’s review-
1. An email from Facebook announcing that the event “Pork Fest 2011″ has been postponed. Spam or bacn?

2. An email from “Pharmaceutical Pam” offering amazing discounts on Cialis. Spam or bacn?

3. A coupon for one dollar off of your favorite brand of bacon from your local supermarket. Spam or bacn?

4. A animated atrocity that promises to reveal other “pork product fetishists” in YOUR area. Spam or bacn?

5. A receipt from your pharmacy for the refill of Cialis that you need to pick up. Spam or bacn?

6. A newsletter from Hormel announcing the winners of the top Spam recipes of 2011. (You are a card carrying Spamaholic) Spam or bacn?

If you answered 2 and 4 as spam, you are correct! If on the off chance they actually made it into your inbox, mark ‘em as spam and move on. 

Lastly, what if you no longer want to receive or feel overwhelmed by the bacn you get?

Spam and bacn are different so treat them differently!
The rules of engagement for your bacn is simple. 

If you no longer want your bacn, don’t mark it as spam! Unsubscribe from it.
Unsubscribe using their embedded unsubscribe link or using Organizer’s simple  Unsubscribe Folder. When you mark legitimate and solicited emails as spam it can affect the way your email client will handle further emails you DO want. Not to mention, sending spam is a crime, sending someone the notifications they asked for is not!

If you want your bacn, but need to get to it later, use filters or let Organizer do the work for you. It’s easy for us and it’s what we do.
Seriously, if you have read this far, you are looking for a solution to your perfectly normal bacn hoarding issue. Let Organizer put it in a nice folder until you can come back around to it!

I hope this quick primer was helpful in helping you do the right thing next time you go through your inbox. Remember, proper engagement is key but the right tools too can make things much easier and save you time for the words you really want to read.

Have you ever clicked on something and instantly regretted it? What’s your favorite cheesy spam line? Share below, on Facebook or tweet us about it!

Good luck out there!

or

“What if this year I started doing this other thing?”

That’s right, I’m talking about New Year’s Resolutions!

You know those annual commitments nearly half of us make and then 80% of us abandon them like the strawberry pink in a carton of Neopolitan ice cream. Well, it turns out we are pretty susceptible to the idea of a fresh start, a new dawn, the next page, a clean slate, a fresh carton of Neopolitan ice cream.

Oh, we’ll set out with the best intentions alright, determined to better ourselves against all odds, temptations and roadblocks. Fired up, we’ll compare our New Year changes with others over black eyed peas. How we will resolve to lose something, gain something or begin something all anew!

But by February or even mid-January, those lucky peas wear off. Most of us will ditch our grand schemes because the human animal is at best, comfortable and at worst, stubborn!

For those of us who want to get more focused in the new year, more organized, it can be a real struggle. It’s easiest to just keep about our business and accept that our workspace, calendar and usually our inbox is in perpetual disarray, never knowing the bliss of the organizer’s mantra: “A place for everything and everything in it’s place.”

Well, we think the problem is simple….we can all use a hand! A digital assistant!

What if there was indeed an “app for that?” A tool that worked in the background and ensured you were keeping at least one of your resolutions intact. Again, a digital assistant.

Well, that app, tool, assistant is our very own Organizer!

Organizer is the absolute best at finding a place for all of those emails that just are not that important…. but are! Receipts, coupons, shipping notices, newsletters, updates, follows, likes and all the stuff we sign up for as we surf the web are placed in their categorized folders, automatically!

Then, like an unpaid intern or a high paid assistant, we’ll send you a Daily Digest of your email activity so you can quickly scan it on your own time. (Likely with tea and crumpets, coffee and danish or, if you are in Austin, perhaps a red bull and breakfast taco.)

Your Organizer “assistant” will highlight the most important things in your digest by placing them right up on top! What a great help Organizer turned out to be. (You didn’t even need Craigslist!)

Oh noes!- What if you are being hassled by a newsletter you no longer want, read or need? Well, your Organizer “assistant” has got that covered too.

By simply placing something in your OIB Unsubscribe Folder, you are asking your Organizer “assistant” to contact that sender and politely request they stop sending you correspondence! That’s it. You’ve just sent a cease and desist letter in one click.

Kinda nice to have an “assistant” who is knowledgeable in FTC CAN-SPAM laws huh? =)

So, keep that New Year’s resolution to get organized! It’s easy with Organizer.

Let’s quickly recap.

1- Resolve to get Organized!

2- Sign up for Organizer.

3- Let Organizer do its thing on your funky inbox.

TIP- Clean up your workspace while Organizer scans and moves things into place.

4- Move the email you no longer want to receive into your new OIB/Unsubscribe folder.

5- Tell everyone how you stuck to it this year and enjoy your new, organized inbox!

What else will you resolve to change? How about improving your Google search?

Fill us in! We want to know how you made your New Year’s resolutions stick in 2011….

Email us at help@otherinbox.com, ping us at @OtherInbox on twitter or hook up on Facebook.

See ya next year!

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To: winners@qelizabethfoundation.co.uk
Subject: Your E-mail Account Was Selected *****As A Winner*****
Message-ID: <1210087604.482078b48f96f@discus.singnet.com.sg>
Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 23:26:44 +0800 (SGT)
From: "Queen Elizabeth's Foundation 2008" <bmoosa@singnet.com.sg>
Reply-To: parkjonesdesk@hotmail.com
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>From : The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation
Woodlands Road
Leatherhead CourtLeatherhead
Surrey
KT22 0BN.

Attn: Beneficiary,

Congratulations The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation has chosen you by the board
of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cashGrant/Donation for your
own personal, educational, and business development. To celebrate the 30th
anniversary program, We are giving out a yearly donation of US$500,000.00
(Five Hundred Thousand United states Dollars) to 5  lucky recipients, as
charity donations/aid from the Queen Elizabeth's Foundation,Diana, EU,UNICEF
and the UNO in  accordance with the  enabling act of Parliament, which is part
of our promotion. To file for your  claim you are to fill out below information
and send it to Mr.Jones Park The Executive Secretary Via his email contact
address.

Claims Requirements:

# Full Name:..............................
# Address; ............................
# Nationality:...........................
# Age:.......... Date of
# Birth:.................
# Occupation:..........................
# Phone:..............Fax:................
# State of Origin:........Country:..........

The Executive Secretary:

Mr. Jones Park
Woodlands Road
Leatherhead CourtLeatherhead
Surrey KT22 0BN.
E-mail: parkjonesdesk@hotmail.com
Tel: +447031948277
**********************************************************************
Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People is a registered
charity No 251051.  Registered as a company limited by guarantee
in London No892013.

Registered at Leatherhead Court, Woodlands Road,
Leatherhead,Surrey KT22 0BN.
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