Historically we have offered a free catch-all email forwarder with all domains. This industry practise has been very much abused by spammers, who carry out what are known as "dictionary attacks" on domains, where they simply send multitudes of junk mail to random addresses within a domain.

Our aim is to:

1. Reduce the amount of spam and unwanted email received by our users
   
   
2. Reduce any issues we may have forwarding legitimate email to other networks or ISP's

Domain Only Customers

For new "Domain Only" customers we will no longer be offering a catch-all email forwarder for the reasons outlined above. Instead you must specify each individual alias separately.

For existing "Domain Only" customers we strongly recommend that you delete your catch-all forwarding accounts. To do this log into the LCN Admin section and select the option "Set-up Forwarding", towards the bottom of the page under the "Email Forwarding" section you will see any forwarders that have already been set-up. If you have a catch-all forwarder set-up it will be marked clearly with a red star (*), simply click the "Delete" button next this star and the catch-all forwarder will be removed. You can then set-up individual aliases in place of the catch-all.

Due to the extremely high levels of spam targeting catch-all email addresses, we are considering removing the catch-all forwarding facility for "Domain Only" customers, as email delivery times are also being affected.

Customers will be notified in the future if we decide to remove all catch-all forwarders, however in the meantime we strongly suggest that you disable any catch-all accounts to help us win the fight against spammers!

Hosting Customers

For hosting customers we also suggest you delete any catch-all email accounts, for more information on doing this please contact our support team, either by telephone on 0870 744 0823 or by email using the contact form on our website www.lowcostnames.co.uk/contact.asp

Other Ways to help reduce spam:

1. Do not display email addresses that are not necessary on your website. Spammers use automated programs to collect email addresses on web pages and will then sell them on to more spammers. Once your email address has been live on your site for a few months, the spammers have most probably got it.
   
   
2. Also try not to display your email address in newsgroup postings and chat rooms.
   
   
3. Use protected forms for email. Ask your web designer to use email forms instead of plain email addresses. The problem is this is sometimes not enough as most email forms display an error message (which includes the webmaster email address) if the form is not filled out when the send button is clicked. Spammers have found a way to trigger this without actually visiting your website. Get your email form to display a message when the form hasn't been filled out. For example, you have not completed this form please fill out and click the Send button.
   
   
4. Check the privacy policy when you submit your address to a website. See if it allows the company to sell your address. You may want to opt out of this provision, if possible, or not submit your address at all to websites that won't protect it.
   
   
5. Why not use two email addresses, one for personal use and one for newsgroups and chat rooms.
   
   
6. Do not use generic email addresses. Even if your email address is not displayed on your website, addresses like info@yourdomain.co.uk are so common spammers know to try it. Try to think of something more unique.

We hope this has been of some help to you. Please also note that LCN are hoping to launch a spam filtering service early next year. We will keep undated on this via the newsletter.