Spammers take advantage of the fact that bulk email is cheap and easy to send and bombard us with irrelevant (and often redundant) sales pitches. Meanwhile, somewhere amid the spam emails are the messages you actually want or need to read. And because they maintain a high profile online, netrepreneurs tend to receive more than their share of bulk email. Spam can even overrun your inbox and crowd out emails you want, causing you to miss important messages.

At the very least, all those unwanted emails waste your valuable time. Granted, it only takes a minute to hit the "delete" button, but all those minutes add up. Don't bother replying to their email to request that your name be removed - usually the return address they give is bogus. Even if it's not, your response will just confirm for them that your email address is "good" and emails sent to your address are being read (encouraging them to send you more email!).

Often spammers collect email addresses from websites, online forums, discussion lists, and chat rooms or use "bots" to do it for them. Sometimes your email address is given (or sold) to spammers without your knowledge by someone you shared it with. To make matters worse, spammers often rent or sell their databases to other spammers. Given all the ways that spammers obtain email addresses, it's nearly impossible to dodge spam completely, but you can fight back and reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Just hit delete.   If you receive an email from a sender you don't recognize, delete the message immediately without opening it or even previewing it. Spam emails may contain a "Web bug" that activates when you open the email, letting the spammer know his emails are going to a valid address, which encourages him to send even more spam to that address in the future. Also, spammers share email addresses with each other, so you may find yourself getting spam from even more sources once your email address has been verified as "live".

Keep your private address private.   Don't share your primary email address with anyone except close friends, family members, and business associates, and make it clear to them you don't want it shared with anyone else. Guard it closely. Don't post it on discussion lists, online forums, or any other online location where it could be viewed by the public. Most reputable bulletin boards let you post without displaying your email address -steer clear of those that don't.

Use disposable email addresses.   We're often asked for an email address when we enter a contest, sign up for a mailing list or magazine, request more information from a vendor, etc. - but there's no guarantee how that address will be used or whose hands it will ultimately end up in. Use a separate "disposable" address for that purpose and then abandon it if you find yourself receiving spam at that address.

Start fresh.   If your inbox is overflowing with spam, abandon your current email address and start fresh with a new one. It's a bit of a hassle to notify customers, ezines, discussion lists, etc. of the new address, but this might be your only option for losing the spam. If your email inbox is overrun with spam, it's not much use to you anymore. Get a new address and guard it carefully to keep it out of the hands of spammers.

Read the fine print.   Some ezines, newsletters, free services, and contest sites sell or rent their email addresses or use them for bulk email campaigns. Always look for a Privacy Policy and read it carefully before you provide any personal information online. Opt out of having your email address used for other purposes whenever you're given the option.

Filter your emails.   Check to see if your ISP provides filters that block email from certain addresses or domains. Your own email application probably allows you to set filters, also. You may not be able to weed out all the spam, but you can at least create "folders" for your important emails and have them automatically sent to them. You could also purchase spam filtering software to identify incoming email from know spammers.

Bounce the spam.   Spam-filtering utilities like MailWasher (www.mailwasher.net), SpamKiller (www.SpamKiller.com), Spam Assassin Pro (www.deersoft.com) Pro, or SpamNet (www.cloudmark.com/products/spamnet/) let you specify which email messages should be allowed into your inbox. Some of these products will even "bounce" any unwanted emails back to the sender (as if they reached an invalid email address) and block future email from those addresses.

Hide your email address.   When posting your email address on your website, encode it by converting some or all of the characters to their ASCII code equivalents. As a result your email address will display correctly on your Web pages and work in scripts, but will be unrecognizable to spam robots that try to "harvest" it.

Use Web forms.   Instead of posting your actual email address on your site, have your site visitors contact you via a Web form instead. They enter their message and any other information and hit "send", and a script on the server forwards the message on to the address you've specified. This will foil spam harvesters trying to grab email addresses from your source code.

Report spammers.   Ultimately the best way to stop spammers is to report them to the FTC or one of the private spam-fighting organizations. If the spammer is found to be promoting a fraud or scam, they could face legal prosecution. If not, they could still be "black listed" as spammers and most of the major ISP's will block their emails and prevent them from reaching their members' inboxes. In the long run, taking action against known spammers is the best way to discourage the practice in the future.