The pervasive presence of electronic junk mail, also known as spam, will probably not diminish any time soon. Junk mail usually advertises products and services without the permission of the people reading it. Aside from being annoying, junk mail can be dangerous. Often senders of junk mail embed viruses into the messages they send.

Viruses are programs or pieces of code that are loaded on your computer without your knowledge and then run without your permission. When you open a message that contains a virus, the virus is activated, sometimes with devastating results. To complete this case study, you gather information on how you can protect yourself from receiving junk mail and spam.

1. Open the file Research_02.docx located in the Project.02 folder included with your Data Files, and then to avoid altering the original file, save the document as Reducing Junk Mail in the same folder.

2. Open your Web browser and conduct a search for Web sites that provide advice about preventing junk e-mail and spam. Search terms you can use include anti-spam guidelines, reducing spam, and reducing junk mail.

3. Find a Web site that provides guidelines that you can use to protect yourself from receiving unwanted junk e-mail and spam.

4. Enter the required information about the Web site in the space provided in the Reducing Junk Mail document.

5. Type your name in the footer where indicated, save the document, print a copy, close the document, and then exit Word.