PostPoints tip: The 'unsubscribe' link works with real companies

Spam may never go away, but you can do something about the commercial mail sent to you by real, non-fraudulent companies. Every few months, take a little time to see if the newsletters, updates and other dispatches they send your way remain worth reading. Odds are, many of them don't: Maybe you no longer do business with this merchant, maybe the e-mail doesn't tell you anything you couldn't learn from the company's own Web site, maybe you just don't have time for it. Whatever the reason, if you find that you've been hitting the "delete" key on these e-mails without reading past their first line or two, you can usually stop them altogether with a simple click of an "unsubscribe" link--most often, in smaller type at the end of each message. (I hope, of course, that you'll consider these weekly e-mails worth keeping around.)