InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

all it junk mail, bulk mail, or spam, it still smells the same, and it isn't going away. You've seen the ads from mail services that offer to help home-based entrepreneurs send millions of E-mails a day to qualified E-mail addresses for only a few dollars--and save trees in the process. Like a Roman farmer looking at the unwashed hordes approaching from the north, the question isn't if you'll get barraged, but when and by how much.

Short of changing your E-mail address monthly, the answers are soon and a lot. A few states, including New York and California, have tried to fight Internet bulk mailing, but their laws haven't been upheld in court.

If you're getting bulk mail now, the privacy of your E-mail address already has eroded. You're also in the vast majority of E-mail users. But there are strategies and tools to help manage the onslaught. These include using unique and cancelable E-mail addresses when signing up at sites, and surfing the Web using one of the products that protects your computer from the small data files, commonly known as "cookies," that most Web sites place on your hard drive, partially to optimize your Internet experience through personalization rules. Here are a few sites that offer free and for-fee levels of service:

* Mailshell creates individual addresses for each new list service or Web site that requires registration. You can maintain your main E-mail address relatively secure from spam, and also see what junk mail lists are attached to different sites (as individual E-mail addresses begin to attract offers for weight loss like filings to a magnet). They can then delete a mailing address without having to notify all their friends and co-workers.

Anonymizer offers a Web-search interface that filters and/or modifies cookies sent from a Web site to your computer, and typically shortens the length of time a cookie stays on your computer (from up to 30 years to the duration of the current site visit). But Anonymizer's action can limit access to some sites, such as Yahoo.com, that require the ability to put cookies on your site and manage them. While cookies may not be a direct way for bulk mailers to track your E-mail address, they do help online marketers profile you, and thereby compromise your privacy.

Nothing is perfect, says Andrew Shen, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in Washington, D.C., which publishes a list of practical privacy tools and offers reams of information for people who want to dig deeper. Consumers still are learning what computer privacy is about, and companies generally aren't very forthcoming on how they collect and use the data.

"Web-based companies need to make their information collection processes more transparent," Shen says. "Then the tools will have a wider audience."

Ironically, but perhaps not surprisingly, bulk mailers couldn't be reached to comment on this subject, although they are required to provide contact information on their junk mail. One company, Bulk ISP Corp., had statements saying that few people object to getting anonymous solicitation E-mail and that they focus on "opt-in" lists where people have asked for information.

The site also said that people who reply to be removed from a list are honored. Replying typically has been seen as a consumer no-no because it shows the list manager that the E-mail address has a live body at the other end. Maybe the thing to do is sign up for Mailshell and test that promise.