Spam mail is an e-mail which is sent from someone else. It is considered a junk mail to internet users. One factor that leads spam mail to the internet users is when they leave their e-mail addresses in a Chat room. They might leave it on purpose such as leaving for contacting among themselves.

     However, besides the people they want to contact with, the e-mail addresses which are left there might be a way for spammers to send this kind of e-mail to the users. Besides Chat room, there are still many other places that we might unintentionally leave our e-mail address at.

     For example, subscribing your e-mail address to some news groups or web sites, or leaving your email address in forums. Forum is a public place where anybody around the world can see your e-mail address. They may put your e-mail address in their spamming lists. Forwarding e-mail is another factor that can lead spam mail to you. When e-mail is continually forwarded to many people, it is very easy for spammers to collect a lot of e-mail addresses because when they receive e-mails, many addresses are shown in there. Moreover, some companies use robot engine, such as spider, to search and collect e-mail addresses from search engines, web boards, or forums. They will get a lot of addresses to spam. Sometimes, they get email addresses from spy ware hidden under some shareware, freeware, or demo from the internet. Spy wares record internet using behaviors from the users, including e-mail addresses, and send all of them to the server. Then they will send advertising e-mails to users according to their behaviors.

     The increasing amount of spam mail will lower bandwidth of the network. Since the year 2001, spam mail has affected the internet users and has been increasing very fast in 2002. Some says that 40% of all e-mails sent around the world are spam, and if the amount of spam mail still keeps increasing like this, the percentage could probably be 70.

     Furthermore, spam mail might not only hassle the users, but it also comes with hidden danger. Nowadays, many viruses imitate the spam mail's characteristics by widely spread e-mails to users. When users read the e-mail, they are infected without any notice. Some viruses affect users' computers a little bit, but some of them turn your computers into an e-mail spammer to send spam mail to the others.

     Recently, organizations or companies face a lot of spam mail problem. The more we use e-mail to communicate, the more spam mail problems rise. Because some companies and organizations realize that spam mail problems will affect their work, they have some solutions to prevent and protect themselves from spam mail. However, they still cannot fully rely on the solutions because spam mail is developed all the time.

     Protecting Yourself from Spam Mail

- Use a free e-mail address from Hotmail, Yahoo, or Maildozy, to subscribe the news on websites.

- Never leave your e-mail address on public places like web board or forum.

- Tell your friends not to forward e-mails to other people.

- Use anti-spy ware software to get rid of spy wares on your computer.