Have you ever had the experience of sending an email to a friend or co-worker, only to get an email a few minutes later asking you to click a link or type in some numbers? It certainly can be frutrating for the person who has to do it but did you ever wonder why that happens?

The person that you sent an email to is using a system known as a challenger response system. What this system is set up to do is to make what is known as a white list of acceptable senders of emails. It assumes that spammers do not have a verifiable email address and therefore will not get the email to verify the address and put them on the white list.

Challenger response systems are great for people who have a very limited email list or who do not want any type of spam at all in their email box. However with all spam filtration systems there are some major drawbacks to using this type of spam protection.

First is the problem if one challenger response system meets another one. There is no way for one to respond to the other and be put on the whitelist of acceptable email senders. This can prevent email communications from flowing should one person forget to add the other to their system when they first make email contact with each other.

The second issue is that of mailing lists and other emails. Mailing lists that you sign up for are wanted email ads that you have opt-ed into. None of these lists have the ability to verify that they are a real email address and be put on the white list. You could ultimately be missing out on important email communication if you do not put any of these lists or senders on the white lists.

It’s invaded the messages boards, it’s invaded your emails and it doesn’t appear to ever have an end in sight. It’s the invasion of spam messages to your inbox!

Every person who has an email address has some type of spam in it at some point. Maybe it’s a message asking you to buy certain products, maybe it’s trying to wheel you into giving them personal information and stealing information from you. Others are trying to infect your computer with key loggers, malware and spyware. Whatever the reason spam is a problem and there is no way around it.

Certain email providers will have spam folders and other types of email devices that can help prevent the amount of spam that gets into your inbox. However, these types of devices are not 100% fool proof at all. Spammers can get around them by altering their email address, putting deceptive titles in the email box and other ways of getting around those annoying blocking spam messages.

So what can you do to truly get rid of spam?

Do you click that opt out link?

The opt out link is at the bottom of the email and will usually ask if you want to opt out of emails in the future. Many people fall for this deceptive measure and will click it. While they believe that they are really opting out of an email they are actually confirming that the email is a real one and will receive more email.

No the only sure way to prevent any spam from ever returning is to just simply point, click and delete the messages that come your way. Deleting them does not allow you to acknowledge that they are real email addresses, while it also doesn’t give the spammer the chance to infect your computer with malware, spyware or harmful viruses.