Take Positive Steps to Keep Spam and Other Unwanted Emails from Your Child

If your child has an email account, then eventually someone will send spam and other unwanted or inappropriate material to your child s inbox. There are several things that you can do to keep those problems to a minimum. One of those things is to use various kinds of filters to screen out unwanted emails. Filters can take several forms, some of which are not so obvious. While there is commercial software that you can buy, the techniques discussed below can be done for free. With a little guidance from you, your child should be able to do most of this without you having to review every email. You can divert high risk emails into a specific email account, filter email before it arrives in your child s inbox, or delete suspicious emails before they are opened. Diverting High Risk Email to a Secondary Email Addresses If your child wants to do things like join a mailing list, use a new online service, or register a product, it is a good idea to avoid using his or her primary email address and instead use a secondary email address. Using a free email account for your secondary email address can have several advantages; one of the biggest is that if unwanted mail is a problem, your child can simply stop using the account and get another one. The ideal secondary account has the following characteristics: * It s free. * It can be accessed using the web. * It allows you to download messages into your home computer s email program. * It has spam filters as well as the ability to filter email by address or by content. There are many companies offering free online email accounts that your child could be used for one or more secondary email addresses. Some of the biggest include Yahoo! Mail and Google s Gmail. It is a good idea to have a backup just in case your primary account is unavailable, but it is also useful to have one for every day use. One drawback of many free email services is that the account may be deleted after a period of inactivity. If your child is going to access the account at least once a month, this should not be a problem. Set Up Filters On The Primary Email Address Typically, anyone who uses an ISP to access the Internet from home is given one or more email addresses. Most ISPs have a basic level of filtering to eliminate spam and other emails that are considered malicious, fraudulent, objectionable. Check with your ISP to see what kinds filtering are possible for the account your child uses. email account will have spam and other unwanted Use Filters In Your Email Program Typically, a program like Outlook Express is used to send and receive mail through your primary email account. Outlook Express and similar programs have the ability to filter emails by either deleting them before your child downloads them from the server, or by deleting after they arrive. These kinds of filters are most convenient for doing the following kinds of actions: * Blocking emails with objectionable words. * Blocking emails from specific addresses. * Blocking emails with very large attachments. * Directing email from particular addresses into a folder other than the inbox. Scanning Incoming Email No matter how careful your child may be when it comes to avoiding and filtering unwanted email, some will always get through. Your child has to be able to spot suspicious email and delete it because such mail may contain content that may be disturbing to your child and perhaps hazardous to your computer. If you can, you may want to set up your email program so that you can see both the subject line and the first few lines of the body of the message without having to open the entire email. If your child is allowed to check email without adult supervision, make sure that she knows that emails with one or more of the following warning signs should be deleted without first being opened: * The email, whether sent by a stranger or from a familiar address, has an unexpected attachment. * The email is from a stranger and the subject line contains random words or characters. * The sender is unfamiliar and the subject line is blank. * The subject line indicates that the email probably has inappropriate content. * The subject line is in an unfamiliar language. * The subject line says that you have won some kind of contest or lottery. * The subject line uses threatening language. * The subject line warns that you are in some kind of trouble or danger. If you and your child can make these suggested actions part of your regular online routine, most of the unwanted email that gets sent to you or your child will be taken care of before they have a chance to cause a problem. Additional Resources : Spam.Abuse.net -- spam.abuse.net Stop Spam Here -- stopspamhere.ca/ Advice from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission -- ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/inbox.shtm Top 10 Ways to Stop Unwanted Email -- speedbrake.com/email/nospam.htm About the Author : Dr. Todd Curtis is the creator of the web s most popular airline safety site AirSafe.com ( airsafe.com ), the director of the AirSafe.com Foundation, and an expert in the areas of engineering risk assessment and risk management. He has applied those basic principles to the problem of managing Internet use, and has put many of those insights and lessons learned into his book Parenting and the Internet (Speedbrake Publishing, 2007), an easy to understand how-to guide that parents can use to manage the activities of their online children. For more information about the book and how it can help you, visit books.speedbrake.com .