Reduce spam and marketing email

Spam and marketing email multiply when your address is bought and sold by data brokers, or exposed in a data breach. Cutting off those sources—and handling incoming mail wisely—keeps your inbox quieter and your address from spreading further.

Use your email provider's tools

Your email provider's spam filter and reporting function are your first line of defense. Mark unwanted mail as spam rather than deleting it; this trains the filter and helps your provider block similar messages for everyone. Never reply to spam or click links in suspicious emails—both confirm your address is active and monitored, making you a more valuable target for resellers.

Unsubscribe carefully

Unsubscribe links only work as intended if you recognize and trust the sender. Legitimate companies must honor unsubscribe requests; scammers use fake unsubscribe links to harvest addresses. If you don't know who sent it, mark it spam instead. Clicking unsubscribe on true spam can signal that your address is live and worth selling again.

Limit your exposure from the start

Use a separate email address for online sign-ups, shopping, and services—keep your main address for people and organizations you know. This compartmentalization means a breach or broker purchase affects only the dedicated account, not your primary inbox. You can monitor or abandon the secondary address without losing access to important mail.

Reduce what brokers hold

The less information brokers have about you, the less they can sell. Removing your data from broker databases means your address gets resold less often and to fewer marketers. Combine email practices with removing your details from data brokers to shrink the pool of organizations that own your contact information.