This is an article oriented around gmail; managing and preventing email spam.

Most of us that use gmail would just select spam and report it as spam and we would not see it from that address again. But what if the problem is worse?

Follow up:

To know how to prevent spam is to know how the spamming works. There are many methods to as how spammers get email addresses. One way, is to use a search engine. A spammer will search for things like "@hotmail.com" and get results from all over the internet. Don't panic! If you have never posted your email anywhere as text on the internet then you are fine. People will sometimes give out there email for people to send that back an answer to a question on forums and social networking websites.

Another way that spammers get your information is when you fill out surveys or sign up for questionable things. If you are signing up for a popular website that has been around for a while, then you are unlikely to have them give out your email to spam because they have hopefully realized that doing so will bring down their website's popularity.

I would recommend that when you sign up for things use one email and when you talk with friends use another. This has proved to be a very nice thing for me as I like to surf the web and sign up on some forums.

There are other advantages to using more than one email. One email could be used to store files by sending yourself attachments or using the Gspace addon for Firefox.

The obvious method is to report spam every time that you get spam. Another method is to use gmail's filter. This allows you to setup a filter of keywords to check for when blocking emails. Consider words that a spam email would say that your friend would not. These may be words like viagra, subscription... whatever keywords you get in spam but not from friends or family.