Last time, we covered how to filter out spam. Unfortunately, the smarter spammers are rather adept at getting around "tipoff" filters, whitelisting involves the risk of delaying something critical, and automatic deleting risks false positives. So, you're probably going to actually see some spam.
Think of it as a challenge. Not merely in the sense of a difficulty to overcome... but to a duel. They have slapped you in the face with their electronic glove and hurled it at your feet. You have two choices:
Part of the idea is to "get a rep" for being someone that spammers Don't Want To Mess With. I have no real evidence, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that this is one of the reasons I don't get spammed as much as some of the people I've heard complain. Even if it doesn't work for that purpose, it's a good service to the net at large, and can be rather satisfying.
One way is to cost them money. If they have a local or toll-free phone number, call it and complain. But only do this once per time they spam you, because to call it over and over and over for the purpose of harassing them, costing them money, interfering with their business, etc., is illegal. Spam isn't... yet. (See my future article, "It's The Law... well, okay, not yet....".) You will be caught, since the bills for toll-free numbers generally show who called when, and caller-ID blocking does not affect them. (BTW, apropos of nothing <whistles innocently>, calls from payphones to toll-free numbers cost the spammer, er, receiver, an extra 35 cents per call.)
The main way, though, is to get them shut down, by complaining to their ISP. There are generally three ISPs you may want to complain to:
For all three ISPs, there is a chance that the domain is in fact responsible for the spam. They may be a domain set up for the purposes of providing spamming services (a "spamhaus"), or a company that chooses to spam about its product (or hire a spamhaus to do so). If the name has nothing to do with sales, marketing, bulk mail, the topic of the spam, or anything else suspicious, don't worry about it. If it does, it gets tricky, so if you're not up to the highly technical tasks of finding, slogging through, and analyzing domain registration data yet (which I might cover in a later, much more advanced, article), just let your postmaster handle it.
The main three names to try to complain to at an ISP are postmaster, root, and abuse, plus webmaster for web pages. However, if you know that the ISP in question has a specific abuse address, just use that. It might not be called abuse; for instance, UUNet's address for dealing with email spam complaints is abuse-mail@uu.net. (Yes, I just put their address in plain text on a web page, against the advice in my earlier article, Keeping Your Email Address Private. Why? Because they hardly do a damn thing about their users who spam, so they deserve to get spammed!)
The response you will get will vary. Most will gladly shut down the accounts/pages/etc., but some hosts of dropboxes and "spamvertised" webpages consider it none of their business, if the spam itself wasn't send from their servers. Don't get abusive; they're cutting their own throats by building bad will.
You may be thinking, "But Dave! I don't have the time to do all that!" Don't worry. Firstly, it gets a lot easier and faster with practice. Secondly, like I said, your own postmaster should be eager to help. It doesn't take much longer to forward email (with full headers, please!), than it does to press delete.
There are numerous other things you can do, but are blatantly illegal, such as emailbombing, revenge-spamming, subscribe-bombing, and other forms of attacking their systems and accounts, including direct breakins. I will not discuss them. Just Don't Do It... unless of course you're good enough at it to get away with it, in which case you don't need me to tell you about it. Don't ask.
Another bad idea that you may be tempted to do, is to email the spammer, either to flame him or to ask him politely not to spam you. Again, Just Don't Do It -- even if they tell you they'll stop. Spammers are so devoid of any trace of ethics, they make lawyers look like angels! Rather than stop, they will take your response as confirmation that your email address is valid, and read by a human. Not only will they not stop, they will probably put you on their higher priority lists (i.e., send you more spam)... and sell your name to other spammers. Remember all the spam you've gotten for CDs full of guaranteed valid email addresses? Many of them confirmed themselves by emailing the spammers.
Next: Other Ways to Hurt Spammers.