Spam is a real digital pollution. Every day spam emails arrive in your inbox. And it’s not about to stop! If you can’t avoid them completely, here’s how to fight their spread.
Born almost at the same time as the Internet more than 40 years ago, spam is still on the rise. Of the approximately 300 billion emails exchanged every day in the world in 2021 according to the firm Statista, Kaspersy, the antivirus software publisher, estimates that more than 45% are spam. Other studies rather point to a rate of between 60 and 90% of global e-mail traffic depending on the time of year and the economic and social context. Impressive and rather believable numbers. Just take a daily look in the Junk Mail or Spam folder of your mailbox to convince you. He is getting fatter day by day. And again, you don’t see everything! A very large part of spam is rejected by your Internet operator before it even lands in your mailbox. The fact remains that spam remains a scourge as troublesome as it is dangerous. You might as well watch your inbox closely.
What is spam?
Spam – also called junk mail, a contraction of rotten and e-mail – is simply the mass sending of unsolicited e-mails by a sender to a large number of recipients. Spam takes its name from a Monty Python sketch in which Spam (the name of a very basic and not necessarily very good canned ham) was sung and repeated on a loop until the conversation was saturated.
Today, spam therefore corresponds to an email, mainly advertising or commercial, that you receive without having asked for anything. It can come from companies trying to sell you their products but also from unscrupulous companies or individuals whose only goal is to extract money from you with a more or less well-crafted scam. Spam can thus take on the appearance of an official email from, for example, a bank, an online service or even an administration and contain fraudulent links intended to extract usernames or passwords from you. This is a phishing attempt. Thus, at best spam is annoying, at worst, if we are not careful, it can present a real danger for your personal and confidential data. For the spammer – the sender of the spam – the technique has nothing but advantages. It costs virtually nothing to implement. Just buy email databases or collect addresses from websites that may be concerned about data privacy, then send the email to millions of recipients. Even with a low return rate, the technique remains profitable.
Today, all online messaging services such as Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo for example, but also software installed on computers such as Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird, etc. immediately integrate a rather effective anti-spam filter. It is based on sophisticated algorithms that check a multitude of elements present in the messages. The anti-spam filter, activated by default, eliminates most of the spam that you may receive from your inbox by filing it directly in a “junk mail” or “spam” folder. Nevertheless, it is possible that a few will fall through the cracks. In case of doubt, several elements can allow you to know if the email you have in front of you is spam or not:
Sender’s name and address : do you know this sender? Have you ever been in contact with him? Do you remember providing your email address to this brand? If not, you are probably receiving unsolicited mail. Be careful, even if the sender’s name seems familiar to you, it could also be identity theft.
The subject of the email : if the subject of the message seems to fall like a hair on the soup, makes you dangle mountains and wonders or appears empty or with incomprehensible characters, mistrust.
The content of the email : spelling or grammatical errors, approximate sentences or message written in a foreign or unknown language… there is every chance that this email is spam. Especially if you are asked to perform a particular and sensitive operation such as logging into an account by clicking on a link or an integrated button. In this case, it may be a phishing attempt.
It is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop receiving spam in your mailbox. The technique remains very popular and remains profitable enough for spammers to deprive themselves of it. Nevertheless, it is possible to fight against spam. First, if a suspicious message has managed to cross the anti-spam barrier of your email and you have identified it, there is always a solution, both with webmail (Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, etc.) to indicate that this message is indeed spam or phishing. The message will disappear from your inbox to join the spam folder. In addition, your email tool will remember your choice and then classify emails of the same ilk directly in the spam folder.
If unwanted messages continue to reach you, you can use the service Signal-Spam of the eponymous association in close connection with the CNIL (National Commission for Computing and Liberties). It allows in a few clicks to report the spam you receive in order to identify spammers and organize appropriate legal action. Signal-Spam also offers download extensions for browsers and email software to make reporting a bit easier.
Finally, one of the most effective methods to reduce the number of spam received is to use several e-mail addresses. You can use a first for your personal or professional correspondence, with your relatives or your collaborators or your communications with various administrations (taxes, Ameli, Insurance, etc.). You can then create and use a second email address which is used for your online purchases.
Many merchants work with partners and pass your details on to them. The approach is not illegal and in general, it is even indicated in black and white in the famous general conditions of use (CGU) that you have probably scanned before registering. Depending on the rigor of these partners, your address can thus circulate with several other merchants and so on. In the end, your contact details are used to provide you with unsolicited advertisements and commercial offers of all kinds.
And if you just want to try out a web service or site without leaving any contact information, you can use a disposable email address. This is a temporary email address that works like any other address. If you do not like the service, any spam sent to this address will be immediately returned to the sender. and if you like the service, all you have to do is modify your account by indicating a real email address in your possession. To find out how to create and use a disposable email, read our practical sheet.
What to do with spam?
Many spams contain clickable links or buttons allowing, supposedly, to unsubscribe to no longer receive messages. It’s a decoy. By clicking on it, you signal to the spammer that your email address is not only valid but also active (used). This is the best way to receive even more spam. Moreover, this link can also be trapped. It can lead to the download of a virus or install trackers in your browser that will track your every web surfing session and send you, again, other spam related to the sites you visit. In any case, you should never open the attachments contained in a message resembling spam. The best thing is to report it as spam or move it directly to the trash.