No, you don't have to eat it, but you have to believe it. SPAM is serious business. There is so much spam online that even some of the largest Internet Service Providers are struggling to fight it. The servers are overloaded, the filtering software is far from perfect, and the result is many of your well intended e-mail end up in bulk mail folders intended for the 8 millionth Viagra spam that has managed to escape your spam filtering software.

The situation is becoming so bleak that even non-spam e-mail is increasingly unlikely to reach your customer. There is so much load on e-mail servers that many legitimate e-mail ends up in bulk folders. Fighting false positives is one of the biggest challenge we face when communicating through e-mail.

Here are few pointers about the steps you can take to avoid false positives:

Make sure you are working with a reputable Internet Service Provider.

Try to send e-mail from your own server instead of a shared one.

Avoid attachments.

Include a prominent opt out link in each e-mail

Avoid html, graphics, and spammy language like, free.

Make sure you have an opt-in procedure.

It is possible that you have not done anything wrong, and you get blacklisted. Blacklisting is an annoyance that results in your e-mail messages blocked by an Internet service provider. This is a serious matter because it can result in lost revenue.

E-mail blacklisting was created as a way to help reduce spam, but it can claim innocent victims. The Internet protocol addresses of suspected or known spammers are compiled into a list, which is normally shared and eventually posted on industry sites like Spamhausdotorg and SpamCopdotnet.

Unfortunately, innocent businesses are finding that even people who follow the rules and do not spam people can find themselves blacklisted. If you learned that you have been blacklisted contact one of the anti spam organizations above.

CAN-SPAM Act

In 2003, Congress passed the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, otherwise known as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, 15 U.S.C. ?? 7701 to 7713 (2005), which prohibits the distribution of certain unsolicited electronic mail, or "spam."

Among other things, the Act

? makes it a federal crime, punishable by fines and incarceration, to send unsolicited commercial electronic mail containing fraudulent header information;

? prohibits certain methods of generating electronic mail address lists;

? prohibits the transmission of commercial electronic mail to recipients who have "opted out" of receiving such communications from the sender;

? creates a regulatory scheme by which certain identifying information is required in all commercial electronic mail; and

? "directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to develop a plan for implementing a national Do-Not-E-Mail registry."

The Act does not disallow the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mails, as long as they contain:

? accurate routing information;

? the physical mailing address of the sender;

? an appropriate notation if the subject content is intended for adults only; and

? a reasonable method by which the recipient may "opt-out" of receiving similar communications in the future.