Contest Farm Find Spam Free Contests

Spam is a nuisance. We all get it in our emails and not very many of us enjoy it. If you ever enter contests, then you are familiar with the fact that many of them will sell your email address and postal address in order to make money for their blogs. What can you do?

Well, some people just don't enter any contests. This is a good bet, you will get less spam if you don't put your information out there to be sold to the spammers. But, if you like to enter contests, or really, if you like to do anything on-line, then this is not a good option.

If you are careful with the contests you enter, or the websites you sign up on, then you can get away without much spam. You can also have an email address that you use, just to sign up on places like this, so that if you do get spammed, you can ditch that email address and get another.

First, that email address. I recommend that everyone do this. Go to GMail and sign up for a free email address. Use this address for everything you sign up for on-line. Once you are sure of the company, you can move it to your main address. If you have a domain name and your server allows it, you can use a different address for each account you sign up for. For instance if I was signing up for test.com I would use the email address test.com@tiredgarden.info. If I then start getting a bunch of spam to that account, I go into my server settings and set that address to return to sender.

Now, checking on the contests. Most contests also contact you to be the winner through your email address, so if you sign up, get a bunch of spam, and then ditch the email address, then you wasted time. So, what can you do to make sure they are not apt to spam you? First off, read their privacy statement. It should say somewhere in it what they use the information they collect for. If it says that they will sill your email address, then don't enter.

Some sites have opt-out options. These are usually check boxes that you uncheck (or check for opt-in) that tell them that you want to be spammed with their junk. If you uncheck them (read their wording to make sure you don't need to check it) then they will not spam you. I have run across some that you have to opt out AFTER you sign up. These will sell your information and then you can opt out afterwards. A pain to clean up.

You can also check out the contests listed on Contest Farm These contests are checked by our moderators to make sure they are spam free. You can be reasonably sure not to get spammed if you sign up with these contests.

None of these techniques are guaranteed to keep you from getting spam, including not ever signing up for contests. You should also use a good spam protection program. I use a gmail account, which has great spam protection. That mixed with the above techniques, I get very little spam.