Be careful when deciding on your email address

We know how cool it is to have an email address like linda@yourwonderfulisp.com . And, most of us, when we sign up for service from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) are assigned one “master” account – with the option to add up to five or ten or more email accounts at no extra charge. And having your first name right up there in lights is pretty tempting – but we’re advising you against it. We’ll tell you why in a minute, but first we have to show you.

Most ISPs will assign you a master email address which uses the name of record on your account with them. For instance: let’s say your name is Linda McAllister (and if it is, sorry about that, we just made it up actually. It’s a nice name, Linda). Your ISP might assign you a master email account such as linda.m@yourwonderfulisp.com . That’s very nice, isn’t it? Hmm, however …when spammers get a hold of it, and most likely, unless you’re very careful with it, some will, you’ll start getting spam that goes something like this:

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Subject: Jessica Sanders Got Rid of Her Baggy Eyes In Just One Day!!!!

Dear Linda,

This special announcement is being sent to you by We’ll Take Anybody Affiliates, LTD, INC. Corp., 42 S.W. Pupil Way, Hong Kong, China located just north of Burger King. To unsubscribe from this mailing, please klik here please (ha! ha!).

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Well, in the hubbub of everyday life, you’re bound to have a lapse in good judgment – and you might just think that any email addressed to “Dear Linda” is personal. Hey, don’t laugh, it happens every day. Of course once you click the link, the spammer knows your address is good and valid email addresses like yours are worth mucho dinero to spammers. So, now, your cool email address will be sold on CD, along with millions of other valid email addresses, to hundreds of other sp/ammers. Ut oh! And, pretty soon, when you check you’re email, your once pristine inbox will be overflowing with sp*am – and you’re going to be seeing a lot worse than anti-baggy eye emails.

Spammers might be lowlife scumbags, but they’re not stupid. They use sophisticated scripts and programs that can break apart email addresses and cut off the .m@yourwonderfulisp.com and extract the first name “Linda” from it- and use it to make the spam look very personal.

So, why not save your “master” account with your ISP for personal banking and online ordering only. These types of transactions are done on secure servers, therefore the likelihood of your email address being scraped or harvested from them is almost nil. Instead, create another account with some odd, but memorable prefix like slurpybean@yourwonderfulisp.com and use it for your normal everyday emails.

Then when you do get spam it will come to: “Dear Slurpybean”- and you’ll know it’s not really so personal at all. We hope!