Hello World,
Today I wanted to discuss safe email sending practices. These are practices that will help prevent spam, the spreading of viruses, and help maintain your privacy. Some of these practices are essential for email users to employ so they aren’t flagged as a spammer by service providers or black listed by specific sites. Being identified as a spammer or black listed can prevent important messages from getting to the appropriate contacts. Not to say also bring you a lot of headaches in trying to get your services back online.
Safe Sending practices include:
Practice #1. Attachments- Always be cautious when downloading an attachment to your computer, attachments are one of the easiest ways to spread virus infected files to friends and colleagues. Always ensure that you know who the sender is and that you were expecting an attached file from them.
- Even if the user personally knows the sender email addresses can be spoofed via the address book of an infected computer. So be sure to let your friends know to expect an attachment from you and what it is.
- Be extra careful of zipped files or executable files (*.exe, *.inf, *.do*, *.bat, *.com, etc) that automatically download and run without your permission when you innocently click on the files for viewing.
Practice #2. Preview- Some users prefer to use email clients such as Windows Mail to manage their email. The preview function within these programs can sometimes unwittingly run the code of an infected email message.
- Therefore, turn off automatic preview of attachments in a message so as to not risk infecting your computer. Mail2World provides a feature full Web-based email interface that can offer everything a mail client can.
Practice #3. Avoid Bulk Mailings- Mailing the same message to multiple recipients can trigger spam filters that will disable a user’s account. Mail2World recommends that emails being sent to multiple recipients be limited to anywhere from 10-15 recipients at a time.
Practice #4. Timing- Even if users were to limit bulk email messages to a low number of recipients, they must also allow enough time to elapse between mailings so that they are in no risk of triggering any spam filters that can tag a message as spam.
Practice #5. Provide a legitimate subject- Many spam mail clients (bots) send out mass, subject-less emails that trigger spam filters. These filters direct subject-less messages directly to the user’s spam folder (a.k.a “The Junk folder”). So be sure to include a descriptive subject title that is unique with every message you send out.
Practice #6. Suspicious Subject lines- Subject lines that are extremely short or vague are often tagged as spam if they go against some of the other guidelines mentioned above. Subject lines that offer something to good to be true like your two-million dollars or a letter to the family of the late Mr. “Whoever,” it usually uses the user’s last name. These types of subject lines trigger spam filters and may cause account deactivation. It is recommended that you avoid using similar subject lines.
The above suggestions are easy and simple precautions that users can take to avoid being tagged as spammers when using the Mail2World system. You can also use the above guidelines for all email systems.
What additional Safe Email sending practices do you use? Share them with us. Leave your comments below!
Best,
A.B.
Comments