The following practices from McAfee Security will help you reduce the thousands of unwanted messages from entering your email inbox:

• Beware of purchasing spam-advertised products. Aside from encouraging spammers, this makes more personally identifiable information (e.g. name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, etc.) available to them. It also can guarantee that you'll get more spam.
  
  
• Refrain from clicking on Reply or Remove! Some senders may remove your address, but others may flag your email address as "live" and send you more spam or even sell your address to other spammers. Instead, forward spam to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov.
  
  
• Use a "public" email address when online. Setup and use a "public" email address, which may either be an additional address from your ISP or a free Web-based email address. Use this email address when participating in newsgroups, joining contests or anytime that your email is requested by a third party online. Potential spam will go to your "public" email address instead of your "private" email address.
  
  
• Don't post your email address online. You'd be surprised how often you use your email address for newsletter subscriptions, in chat rooms or to join online groups. Before you post your email address, know whether it will be displayed or used. Then use a "public" email address when necessary.
  
  
• Use an email spam filtering program, such as McAfee Anti-Spam. Anti-Spam has thousands of powerful filters to identify and quarantine spam before it enters an email inbox. Anti-Spam can also retrace the route of the spam message back to the mail server and automatically send a complaint on the recipient’s behalf to the spammer’s service provider, system administrator(s), or any other address the user chooses.