Box 12.6 Activities That Result in Spam Mail In an informal test, a CNET study identified a variety of behaviors that were likely to result in spam mail being sent to users. In this test, the researcher opened 12 free e-mail accounts (and monitored some older ones), dedicating each to one typical online activity (including the activity of doing nothing). He also provided an e-mail address on a number of "sign-up" sites, posted messages on message boards around the Web, registered domain names, and visited chat rooms. Over the course of a few months, he checked to see which activities attracted the most unsolicited e-mail to an account, and then he tried to figure out how to remove the spam. His conclusions were that posting messages on certain message boards run by unscrupulous operators and participating in AOL chat rooms (even those that were not sexually oriented) or in an online lottery were activities that resulted in the greatest volume of spam mail (as much as 10 spam messages per day). Activities such as registering a new domain and placing e-mail links on one's own Web site resulted in intermittent spam e-mail--months with nothing, and then sudden bursts. Some common activities (including shopping online, registering at member sites, subscribing to an e-mail newsletter, signing up for a free e-mail account (and doing nothing with it, not even registering in an online directory), and registering software online) often thought to generate spam in fact resulted in virtually no spam at all. The researcher also found that while many spam messages offered a way to remove oneself from spam lists ("only the most egregious porn spam" did not), he found that many of the offered opt-out processes did not necessarily work (e.g., opt-out links were invalid). He found that clicking unsubscribe links did result in elimination of spam, but also noted that his experience may not be typical. SOURCE: Adapted from Matt Lake, 2001. "We Reveal the Riskiest E-Mail Behaviors on the Net," July 26, available online at <http://cnet.com/software/0-3227888-8-6602372-1.html>.