Unsolicited email (spam) claiming to come from metamilk

If you have received a spam email claiming to come from Metamilk you can be sure that it has not come from Metamilk. Furthermore, Metamilk will never send you an email requesting bank details or other personal information.

Unfortunately spammers can easily forge the return address on an email, since there is nothing in the email sending protocol, SMTP, to ensure that an email which claims to come from someone actually was sent by that person (or organization). Email is just like a paper postcard - you can write whatever return address you want on it - so when you receive an email there is no guarantee at all that it came from the person or organization it claims to come from.

What should I do if I receive unsolicited email?

The best thing is to delete it immediately.
Don't open any attachments or follow any links.
Don't reply to it since this only lets spammers know that the email has reached you.
Please don't send it to Metamilk. You can be absolutely certain that we haven't sent it to you, and unfortunately there is nothing at all we can do about it. In the physical world, if an anonymous person sent someone else a letter claiming to come from you, you could start by assuming that the sender had a reason for choosing your name in particular, and by considering all possible reasons, eventually identify the anonymous person, whereas with spam, return addresses are probably just selected at random so we have no clues to follow.

I received an email which made me frightened/scared/upset/worried

The approach recommended by Metamilk is to just delete the email immediately and forget about it instantly.

Don't take unsolicited email seriously.
Realise you are not alone. The exact same email has probably been received by millions of other people too.
Delete it from your computer and from your mind!
If it still bothers you, talk to someone else about it.

How can I protect myself against unsolicited email?

Make use of all the anti-spam protection that is available, either by using an email client (program) that filters spam, or by taking advantage of any spam filtering provided by your internet service provider.
Ensure your email program doesn't automatically display previews of messages since the preview pane is like an open door through which viruses and malware can jump from the email into your computer.
Never send or open emails containing wordprocessor documents, since these are notorious for spreading viruses.
Only connect to the internet when you actually want to send or receive something.

The above list is by no means exhaustive. It is worth searching the internet to find out more things you can do.

Will the problem ever go away?

A group of people who wanted to send and receive emails from each other without ever getting spam could do so by agreeing to always send encrypted emails that contained a digital signature. They would have to use an email program that automatically rejected any email whose signature was not a valid signature belonging to a member of the group. Since digital signatures can't be forged, and they would be contained inside encrypted emails so they couldn't be tampered with in transit, no spammer would have a hope of sending anything to the group.

However the above scenario requires people to decide who they want to receive emails from in advance, which would require a change in the way people think about email communication, namely that one must first ask for permission to send email to someone by some other means such as submitting a request on the person's web page. This might sound strange at the moment but in due course people might find it quite natural.

Finally it is as well to point out that Metamilk always ignores all incomming email unless it comes from someone Metamilk has already sent email to, so if you wish to contact us please use our contact page instead.