Can I stop pornographic e-mail?

We have somebody using our email address to send porn to us. We've alerted all our email friends to be on the lookout for porn to be sent to them under our email address. How can we get this stopped? We've had this address for many years and hate to change it. Is this the only way? Can we find out where this porn is really originating?

This question was answered on December 11, 2002. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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This is a tougher one than might seem, and I'll have to be gentle about how to reply.

Generally, a real flurry of adult advertising material over e-mail is often in response to some prior contact with businesses which purvey this stuff.

Now, before you get angry, read on ...

Someone may have indeed forwarded your email address, rather than a person in your own household

Although an annoyance, my advice is simply to wait this out If you start responding to these solicitations, with the anonymity of the internet being what it is, you are probably going to simply accumulate even more of this type of e-mail than you are getting now.

You have a tremendously generic domain name attached to your e-mail address In fact, it is so obvious, my guess is you are simply getting this stuff by default If it were me, I'd consider changing, or even selling the domain name, assuming you own it.

There are filters which can screen out some of the offending messages, but as a whole, they don't really work.

If you want to track down the senders, I'd suggest you contact them offline, or by phone, but you'll probably need a lawyer's threats in order to get any results You'll also have to track them down It isn't really practical.

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Posted by Robert of Mesa Community College on December 11, 2002

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