I just counted. In the past week, I have received nearly 170 pieces of spam into my primary email account. The bad part is that mixed in with the 170 pieces of junk are 15 emails that I actually wanted to read. What to do?!

Spam is unsolicited commercial email, either plain ole advertising or plain ole fraud. In the latter case, they’re after your email address to sell to other spammers, or worse, they’re after your bank account numbers, passwords, and other valuable info. Here’s some things you can do to reduce the amount of spam in your inbox and in the world.

Don't reply to spam. Never — not even to unsubscribe from a mailing list — unless you know and trust the source, such as when the email message comes from an online store or newsletter that you have signed up with. Answering spam just confirms to the spammer that your email address is an active one. Likewise, don't contribute to a charity in response to a request sent in email. Many spammers prey on your goodwill with charitable requests. So, treat all unsolicited email as suspect. If you learn about a product or charity in your email and are interested in finding out more, locate a physical address and phone number and approach the organization on your terms.

Don't follow links in spam messages. Don’t even open them. Just clicking on an image in some spam email will send your email address back to the spam originator. Many spammers use variations of email addresses at common domains. If you reply or click a link within an email message, you may just confirm that your email address is valid. Unwanted messages that offer an "unsubscribe" option are particularly tempting, but again, this is often just a method for collecting valid addresses.

Or worse, your click may just start a virus running!

Don't forward spam. If it’s just too funny, and you HAVE to forward an email, then make sure you put all the addresses of your friends into the BCC… box rather than the TO… box. This will protect them (if not you) from exposure to email- harvesting spammers. If you don’t see the BCC… field, you can reveal it via the View or other options menu.

Watch out for check boxes that are already selected. When you shop online, companies sometimes add a check box that is already selected, which indicates that it is fine with you if the company sells or gives your email address to other businesses (or "third parties"). Clear this check box so that your email address is not shared.

Open an additional email account. Yahoo, Google and several other companies offer free email accounts. If you frequently submit your email address (for online shopping, signing up for services, or including it on something like a comment card), you may want to have a secondary email address to protect your primary email account from the spam that could be generated. You should also use a secondary account when posting to online bulletin boards, chat rooms, and stuff like that, so the spam that follows from those activities won’t get mixed up with your good email.

Take the Boulder Pledge. A simple part of the solution to the spam problem was presented by Roger Ebert in 1996. The idea is that if spam didn’t sell products, then there wouldn’t be any spam. Consider taking the pledge (then forward it to all of your friends – lol).

            "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited email message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community."