Zarr's December 2004 Newsletter

Gotchas on the Web Issue

1. Unsubscribing can get you spammed
If you receive spam from someone you have never heard of before and it allows you to unsubscribe at the bottom of the email, be careful as this generally leads to you getting more spam. By unsubscribing, you are confirming to spammers that your email address is “active” and giving the spammers details on who to target in their next spam campaign. The best approach is to delete junk emails.

2. Anti Virus Software - not a one-off
With over 6,000 viruses being introduced onto the Internet every month, having anti-virus software is a must. When you first install the software, it knows of all the viruses up to that date. You need to keep it up to date every few days, or every week at a minimum so that it gives you the highest chance of being kept safe. You can normally do this on-line.

3. Domain name registry of America
An official sounding company called the Domain Name Registry of America has been sending letters to the owners of non UK domain names (.com, .org, .net etc) telling them their domains are about to expire and that they need to renew.

This company is based in Canada and is sending out these letters in order to dupe domain name owners into transferring their domain names to them. They have nothing to do with the domain names in question and the domains usually aren't about to expire. Ensure that you are renewing your domain name with the company you originally reserved it with

4. Bank account details
If you are requested to confirm your bank account details online never do so. Banks will never contact you directly by email to confirm anything. Even if you click through to the link in the email and if it looks like your online bank don’t be fooled. It is most likely a copy of their website setup by unscrupulous operators specifically to capture your details. 

5. Beware other Phishes
Phishing describes any forged emails which look like they have been sent from a particular sender. The banks have been victims of this scam for a while but now other such as eBay and Pay pal are also suffering. The danger of these emails is that they do look official – they seek to convince consumers to share their user names, passwords and personal financial information for the purpose of using it to commit fraud. 

Top Tip: Reducing Spam A simple way to reduce spam emails is to “encrypt” any email addresses on your website so that they are readable to humans, but not to computers! Computer programs visit websites and identify email addresses which are added to lists which are sold to spammers. So by encrypting email addresses on your website, or removing email addresses completely and replacing them with an enquiry form you are reducing your risk of receiving spam email. Ring Vicky on 01788 820900 if you would like Zarr to do this for you.

Special Offer: Spam Reducing Software
Zarr and some of our clients have been using an email filtering service for the past 6 months. This service filters out spam emails and viruses from each email that comes through. It has a 99%+ success rate in identifying and removing spam. As an example, over the past 30 days, Zarr has received over 28,000 emails, and over 90% of those were spam or viruses. We now only get 5-10 spam emails per day, rather than the 800+ per day that we used to get.

The cost of this email filtering service is about £1 per day – which is cheap compared to the costs of dealing with spam emails and viruses.

If you’d like more information on this service, please give Ursula a call on 01788 820900. 

Zarr News: TMB Accreditation
Hannah Reynolds becomes Technology Means Business accredited. Technology Means Business independently recognises advisers and organisations that have demonstrated their ability to give high quality advice to SMEs on how IT can help them to meet their business needs. It is an independent national standard endorsed by government and Zarr decided to undertake the qualification in their commitment to offer a clients a high level of service.

Zarr News: Programmer Required
Zarr is seeking a programmer with .NET and ASP skills to join our team. If you know someone who might be interested please invite them to participate in our online assessment. To complete the test please visit http://zarr.com/interview/default.asp

Case Study: The Coventry Charter’s Newest Recruit The Coventry Business Charter aims at encouraging businesses and other organisations across the city to pledge to carry out activities to support the delivery of the Coventry Community Plan – a blueprint working towards improving the lives of people working and living in the city. Participating businesses and organisations will receive recognition in the form of a charter or certificate and will also benefit from networking opportunities, employee development and assisting in regenerating local communities and economies. Next year Coventry will be hosting a half marathon. Businesses of all sizes are being encouraged to get involved, and the Business charter can make that link. The project aims to recruit 250 companies to the scheme in 18 months. With only one full time member of staff working on the project the Charter required a website that was more than just an information site, one that acted as an administrative assistant. The Zarr developed website enables businesses to sign up to take part and have the chance to look at a menu of objectives. Zarr developed the web-based system to allow businesses and organisations to pledge online to get involved and complete Community Plan activities. Since it’s launch at the beginning of November the site has been attracting companies to sign up to the charter. To find out how your website can be an effective addition to your administrative team ring Ursula on 01788 820900.

Coming Soon

Zarr’s January newsletter features small market, big wide world - how niche retailers are succeeding online.

Contact Zarr

If you are interested in finding out how your business can benefit from the latest web technology or if you need help with your online business strategy contact Zarr Internet Services on 01788 820900.

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