How to Get Rid of Spam: Emails. Texts and Calls

Spam is everywhere. From phishing emails to irritating spam texts to irritating cold calls, users have to contend with baseless and unwelcome messages every day. Whether it’s taking up time to read or delete them, dealing with fraudulent requests, or sometimes much, much worse, spam poses a threat to our lives and peace of mind and is a widespread drain on our respective societies’ digital security. In an interconnected world as dependent on the internet, how exactly should we tackle the problem of spam?

Why is there so much spam?

In every corner of the globe, people are faced with the scourge that is spam. Understanding its sources can be a step toward tackling it. Let’s take a look at the main reasons why spam exists:

Mass emailing practices

How easy and cheap it is to send millions of emails makes it tempting for every marketer and scammer to hit ‘send’ as often as possible. Mass emails can reach thousands or millions all at once, at little effort and cost. Scammers send their pitches to large lists, counting on volume to net a few victims. An email to 10 million users costs practically nothing to send, yet even a 0.01% response rate means you’ve got 1,000 candidates to specialize and wheedle.

In response to the barrage, many nations have passed laws similar to the CAN-SPAM Act, the US federal law regulating commercial email, mostly designed to specify what would be put in an email and to give recipients the right to stop it. As with spam legislation, enforcement can be difficult and it’s easy for spammers to work from essentially unenforceable, or at least laxly enforced, jurisdictions anywhere in the world. This means that the responsibility still largely falls to the individual user to avoid being conned by a mass email.

Harvesting email addresses

Spammers can harvest email addresses from a variety of sources using the following techniques:

Scraping websites
Buying lists from dubious sources
Using automated bots to collect as many addresses as possible

Once accumulated, these lists are typically sold on the dark web for reuse in subsequent spam campaigns. Sites such as forums, social networks, and business directories are especially vulnerable.

Even mundane actions, such as publishing your email address in an online forum or joining a mailing list, can leave you exposed. Spammers remain innovators, developing new ways to subvert protections and avoid detection. For example, email addresses can be obscured by simple algorithms that help them slip past filters, a tactic that also makes it easier for address harvesters to assemble massive lists of targets.

Lack of robust security measures

If security measures are not sufficient, a user may be exposed to various types of spam. Poor spam filters and the fact that there are no authentication protocols make it very easy for spam messages to circumvent security systems. Thus, it is crucial to use updated and complex email filtering systems. For email providers, advanced technologies such as Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are of great help as they are able to identify and filter out spam. For instance, Google’s Gmail incorporates ML algorithms that have been trained on billions of emails and are able to detect most of the spam messages with high accuracy.

But many users still use old email clients or don’t set their security settings as strongly as they should. Basic measures, such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting Conformance), can make email more secure, and if they aren’t implemented properly, the message is left open to spammers.

Human error

Aside from clicking on fake links and visiting malicious sites, users accidentally contribute to the spamming problem:

Sharing email addresses in unsecured spaces on the web
Subscribing to dubious sites
Allowing permissions for apps and websites without thinking about their reach
Using the same address for all accounts without considering the risk of spam

Another reason for the rise in spam has to do with the lack of attention paid by users at the very beginning of their online journey. They can subscribe to a newsletter or service without reading the fine print, and end up receiving emails they didn’t ask for.

Users need to be more careful in order to minimize this. Using disposable email addresses for subscriptions for non-critical services, and regularly reviewing your subscriptions, can drastically cut down on spam. You might also want to consider creating a habit of reviewing header details on emails before interacting with them, to minimize your chances of being fooled by spam.

How to reduce spam on the key sources?

First of all, let’s look at the places where you can encounter spam – emails, text and phone messages. Here’s how to stop spam or at least reduce them on the most common platforms:

Emails

Email spam or junk email is an ever-growing problem, which fills inboxes and sometimes even poses security threats. Nowadays, modern email services incorporate the most advanced spam filters to block unsolicited promotional emails. Nevertheless, some spam messages still slip into the inbox. Moreover, according to a report from MailMondo, for 2023, 45.6% of all emails in the world are marked as spam.

So how can you cope with the situation? These are the best strategies that you should adopt:

Take advantage of the spam filters built into your email service; flag spam and move it into a junk folder. Gmail Outlook and other email providers let you adjust the settings for your inbox filters.
Make sure to set your email to receive HTML emails without images, so that spammers can’t verify your email address.
Never respond to any spam emails or click on unexpected links, as this confirms to the sender that a particular email address is active and increases the risk of more spam.
Unsubscribe from unwanted newsletters and marketing emails on a regular basis. Legitimate businesses normally honor ‘unsubscribe’ requests, which lessens the amount of email you receive.
You can also consider turning on a service such as WOT’s Email Protection, which employs anti-phishing measures designed to block any incoming phishing scams and potentially malicious links. This additional layer of protection will help maintain your personal information while you surf the web and read your messages.

Texts

Spam text messages, also known as SMS spam, are becoming more widespread. They are annoying, and sometimes harmful, as they try to get your personal information. Orbit Media conducted a poll asking ‘Do you get spam text messages?’, and the result shows that 83% of people answered they had received an SMS span, and 24% of people are getting them every day.

In order to avoid receiving SMS spam you can follow these steps.

Block the numbers you receive those spam messages from, manually. There are some smartphones equipped to block specific phone numbers, or even numbers starting with a certain prefix.
Spam texts can be reported to your mobile carrier by copying and pasting them into a text message and sending it to 7726 (SPAM) as per the recommendation of CTIA. This helps carriers improve their own spam filtering algorithms, which, over time, helps all of their subscribers.
WOT’s Spam SMS Filtering for iOS can also block and filter unsolicited text messages, using community-powered intelligence to identify spam numbers and messages.

Calls

Then there’s the issue of spam calls – often involving some form of scam aimed at getting you to give up money. Truecaller’s own internal metrics found that Americans wasted an estimated 234 million hours. That’s 9.7 million days or 320,000 months.

You can follow these steps to block spam like this:

Block calls from unknown numbers with built-in ‘do not disturb’ settings on your smartphone. iOS and Android have this functionality.
Download and install apps such as Robokiller or Truecaller, which filter spam calls by running them through an algorithm that analyzes incoming calls against databases of common spam numbers.
Put your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry to minimize telemarketing calls. You’ll still get plenty of spam calls, but it will reduce the number.

Maintain a cleaner and safer communication

Spam does more than clutter your inbox, drawing attention away from important emails and wasting your time. It also represents a significant risk to personal information and security. Following the steps in this article will help reduce and clean spam in your emails, text messages, and phone calls. By taking these steps, users can keep their online communications as clean as possible. Your digital life will be safer and more efficient. Take action now to keep your inbox clean from spam, waste, and security threats.

FAQs

How can I identify a phishing attempt?

Phishing messages can sometimes look like they’re from someone familiar or from a real organization. To spot them, check for nonsensical grammar or language, or for a sense of urgency. Check the sender’s name by hovering over it to see if it looks familiar, and hover your mouse over the link, without clicking, to see where it leads.

What is the best way to secure my phone from spam calls?

You can block spam calls with call-blocking apps and activate built-in features on your phone that filter out calls from unknown numbers. Whenever possible, register your phone number with the National Do Not Call Registry.

How do spammers get my email address?

Spammers might harvest email addresses from public lists, buy ‘opt-in’ lists from dubious sites or use automated ‘bots’ to scrape web sites or ‘bulletin boards’. You aren’t safe if you post your email address in a public place or sign up for services that aren’t trustworthy.

Can responding to a spam email cause issues?

You don’t want to reply to a spam email, because it confirms to the sender that your email address is working and, as a result, you’ll get more spam. You can also be subjected to phishing and malware.

Are there any regulations in place to combat spam?

Yes, there are laws in many countries that try to control spam – the most well-known example is the US’s CAN-SPAM Act, which governs commercial email for recipients in the United States, and helps them stop it by setting rules commercial senders must follow when sending them email. Because there’s no foolproof enforcement, though, it’s left to the person on the receiving end to protect themselves.