I'm sure this next statement is not going to make you fall off your chair. I hate spam. Over the past year, spam has needlessly stolen dozens hours of my time. Even though I have a spam filter installed, I still have to sift through the spam I receive to ensure that no messages I want have been misclassified. It's rare - but it does happen.

So, the question is, how can I avoid spam? Obviously there are people in this world who receive no spam -- how can I become one?

The answer of course, is easy to say and hard to do: if spammers do not have your email address, you won't receive very much spam. So you avoid spam by keeping your email address private.

So, how do you keep your email address private? Actually, over the long term, it's next to impossible. Many popular web sites these days have some type of registration required to use them - New York Times, Blogger, Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo. This list goes on and on. Every time you register for a web site, the risk of your email address becoming part of some spammers list increases.

If you have ever been part of a Usenet discussion, mailing list, forum, or blog comments, chances are good that your email address has been posted to the web. Spammers have programs that surf the web all day looking for new addresses - called harvesters. There are tons of other ways for spammers to get a hold of your email address, including hacking, random emailing, viruses and worms.

So, given all this, here are a few ideas for avoiding spam for good:

1. Change your email address frequently. Since it takes months for your email address to make its way onto every spammers list, if you changed your email address every 6 months, you would avoid quite a bit of spam without affecting your surfing habits.
2. Have multiple email addresses - one "private" for friends, and another "public" for web sites. This way, you can only change your "public" email address every few months, without harrassing your friends with "my email has changed" messages.
3. Create multiple public email addresses. That way, when one of those public email address gets flooded with spam, its even easier to change your address. And you will also get an idea of which web site gave your email address away to spammers.
4. Install a spam filter. If you can't afford to change your email address, install a good Bayesian spam filter.
5. Use Hotmail. These services seem pretty good at filtering out spam, although you lose some advanced features that modern email readers provide.
6. Use an email reader that only displays plain text, or one that shows HTML with images diabled like Outlook 2003. HTML images are one way spammers use to prove your email address is valid.
7. If you have to post your email address to a mailing list or public web site, obfuscate it. Use (at) instead of "@", (.) or (dot) instead of ".", put spaces in there, or insert obvious spam traps such as NO.SPAM or DIE.SPAMMERS.DIE in the middle of your real email address.