Molly Gordon a business and professional coach in Suquamish, warns businesses with an active Internet presence that their online identities may be hijacked by spammers. She should know, it happened to her.

On Nov. 28, Gordon received an email advising her that a message to a number of accounts with usaserve.net had bounced. As the publisher of a weekly email newsletter that reaches over 4,000 subscribers, her first concern was that something had gone wrong with newsletter distribution.

When she examined the message, she noticed that the return address on the bounced email was an inactive email address set up years ago for a teleclass she did on clarifying business visions. The address had been used for a month or two and then retired.

Gordon read on and was horrified to discover that the text of the bounced message was a get-rich-quick come-on that encouraged recipients to order their own spamming product.

Concerned that recipients might believe the spam had originated from her business, she attempted to track the perpetrators. “I called the number in the spam and was given the run around. I didn’t really expect them to give me their name, address, and social security number so I could sue them.” she noted.

Gordon then attempted to identify the spammers by examining the headers of the e-mail message. Unfortunately, since all she had to work with was a forwarded message, her software was not able to reveal sufficient detail. The trail was cold.

Determined to generate some value out of the experience, she researched the spam problem and assembled the following tips for protecting yourself and your business.

• Get as much information as possible about the routing of the message. Most e-mail programs reveal only a portion of the information encoded in each message. To see the hidden portions, you need to expand the headers. Detailed instructions for doing this in dozens of popular programs are available at www.spamcop.net.

• Once you have revealed the information in the headers, use a reporting service like that at www.spamcop.net to identify the spammers.

• Forward the offending email to legislators in support of efforts to draft effective and enforceable anti-spam laws. The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email has a utility that does this. Click on the Recycle Your Spam option at www.cauce.org.

• Report the spam. Reputable Internet service providers (ISPs) want to stop spam because it slows their systems, offends their customers, and compromises their integrity. Once you have identified the origins of the spam you can report the spammers to their ISPs.

• Take action immediately. In order to use the spam identifier at www.spamcop.net you must act within three days of receiving the spam.

Not all commercial e-mail is spam. Many businesses like Gordon’s provide information and services to their client and customers by e-mail. These businesses use an opt-in system through which consumers subscribe to newsletters or request product updates.

Gordon observes, “I think it’s important for business owners like me to take action and to alert others that we don’t have to let these abusers damage our reputations.”

Gordon can be reached at (360) 697-7022, by e-mail atmolly@mollygordon.com, or at www.mollygordon.com.