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We seem to be increasingly inundated with junk emails. We use the filter provided by our Internet Service Provider, but it doesn’t seem to stop all the junk mail or “Spam” as my daughter calls it.
Apart from the inconvenience of having to delete it, some of the content is not the kind of thing I want my daughter to be exposed to… I’m also worried about computer viruses.
Should I change my Internet Service Provider?
Who can I complain to?
Shouldn’t this be illegal?

My son was more concerned about viruses than anything else when he first started using the computer. Because a friend of his had opened an email with an attachment and it had infected his PC with a computer virus. This caused a lot of problems on their computer and cost money to get it fixed.
We now know that most viruses are spread by email. So we don’t open any emails from people we don’t know. That way we don’t get exposed to any disturbing content either.
Why don’t you make this rule part of your families Internet code?

I think junk email is a form of harassment. I used to get loads of Spam when my email address was just my first name. But now I’ve changed it to something less obvious, it’s not such a problem.
We never reply to it, and don’t bother clicking the unsubscribe button either, it just proves the address is active and makes you a target for even more Spam.
It is worth complaining to your Internet Service Provider. The more complaints they get, the more likely they are to take it seriously. If that doesn’t work, think about changing your ISP.

One of my children was sent an email with some really nasty pictures in it and obviously I don’t want them to be exposed to that.
We found out that a lot of junk is generated by signing up for things on the web. Since we can’t seem to stop them from entering online competitions, we set up a family email address that I administer for requesting things or entering competitions
This way, if we get junk mail, I get to see it before my children do.
When I shop online I now only use reputable retailers and always read their privacy policy to see how they will use our information. We heard that some companies can give or even sell your personal information, and this is how a lot of junk mail is generated!

My son has had a lot of problems with viruses. He says its because he downloads lots of games and software demos, and viruses are sometimes hidden in them.
We had to get software to protect the computer, which automatically downloads updates from the internet to guard against the latest viruses. There are thousands of them apparently, with more and more being developed all the time
Now that we’ve got broadband, he’s also installed a firewall. This helps protect us from viruses and also stops other people on the Internet getting into our computer.