piclist.com wrote:

> As I'm learning, one of the spammers favorite tricks is to include in
> an HTML email a ftp or http link to a logo. The logo is just a plain
> white box, so it doesn't appear and they include an ALT tag so that
> the little "I haven't had a chance to load this image" icon doesn't
> appear. The image name is and id number tied to your email address.
> When their special server gets a request for that image, they know two
> things 1) you read (or at least previewed) the email and 2) your email
> address is valid.

  Switch off automatic image loading.  I have learned this trick to
greatly speed up *serious* web browsing.
--
  Cheers,
        Paul B.