# Email for 12 year old child



## woodbine (16 Apr 2009)

Hi 

Is there any email provider that i can use to get an email address for a 12 year old child? It must be guaranteed no spam?

He's getting a laptop soon (probably another thread imminent on that one, lol) and he wants an email address. 

I've used gmail for years now and i love it but i get what i consider a lot of spam. Now it's not a problem for me. It's recognised as spam and filed accordingly. But some of the headings are really horrible and I don't want the child to even see some of this language. 

Is there a child friendly email address service?

Is it possible that an email can only receive mail from specified (approved) sources?

thanks in advance.


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## bigjoe_dub (16 Apr 2009)

spamwise i find ireland.com to be good.  it is also free now as well.


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## paddi22 (16 Apr 2009)

a google search threw up [broken link removed]

also in the settings of most email providers you can have an option to only allow mails from selected emails address's...


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## glowinthedar (16 Apr 2009)

You could also try One care.


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## allthedoyles (16 Apr 2009)

we use gmail.com and we receive no spam emails ....

check settings and you can eliminate spam completely


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## baldyman27 (16 Apr 2009)

allthedoyles said:


> we use gmail.com and we receive no spam emails ....


 
I use gmail.com and lately a few spam mails have started appearing.


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## jhegarty (16 Apr 2009)

There is no system that can remove 100% of spam , without rejecting lots of legit one as well.


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## Bubbly Scot (16 Apr 2009)

I use gmail and have had no spam in the two years I've had it. Although I did get spam for a couple of weeks while I was getting someone elses mail, that's been resolved.

My children have their own dotcom and use that for email. I use gmail for writing to people and a hotmail one for signing up to websites. Hotmail is spammed a lot. That idea might be more difficult for you to manage though as you want to eliminate spam.


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## AlbacoreA (16 Apr 2009)

While you might start of with minimal or zero spam theres no way of eliminating it. I suggest you pass all email through your own account, so you can monitor it, and it has the bonus of adding another layer of email filtering. I'd be pretty wary of having a 12yr old have email tbh. 

So set up a email account like gmail, but have 12yr old only access it via outlook and only allow email from approved addresses etc. 

There might be a system that holds email until you release it to the child account. I don't know of any though.


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## woodbine (17 Apr 2009)

thanks for all the responses everyone. 

I am wary of him having his own email address but i do like the idea of filtering email through a separate account. (btw, The only reason he would have an address is to keep in contact with close family members he doesn't see very often). 


He saved money from his birthday, confirmation and Christmas to buy the laptop and i'm delighted that he can see the importance of saving.
We bought the laptop yesterday and after hours of tearing my hair out last night i finally got it connected to the wireless network. (encryption key for netopia router!! )

I will have a closer look at my own gmail settings, and the outlook option and take it from there. 

I'm surprised there isn't some (safe) service already in place for email for kids. 

If i can't find a safe solution i will shelve the idea until he's old enough to deal with some of the rubbish that i've seen. 

When he's 21 maybe?


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## AlbacoreA (17 Apr 2009)

Seems like theres a lot of options. 


Personally I'd filter by hand myself anything that got send or came into my kids. I don't see any other way to be sure. 

[broken link removed]


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## purpeller (17 Apr 2009)

Another related suggestion would be to pick a username that does not his name in it.  Name email addresses (in my own and others experience) get a lot more spam than making up a username with random words.


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## AlbacoreA (17 Apr 2009)

Good idea. I think its a bad to ever use your name in email, or forum login on the net anywhere etc. keep it random, and keep it different for everywhere you login.


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## 26cb (17 Apr 2009)

I use gmail to say in touch with my 12 year old godson and have had no SPAM issues whatsoever.


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## AlbacoreA (17 Apr 2009)

No offense, but thats like saying I never wear a seat belt because I've never had a accident. You may avoid spam for a long time if you hardly ever use your email, and have an unusual name, but eventually you will probably get some.


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## Pique318 (22 Apr 2009)

The best way of avoiding spam is IMO, using a combination of letters & numbers in the email address. I've done this with my Gmail account and have not yet got one spam email, and I've had it for a few years.

Example.
Use J0nes or Jon3s instead of Jones.
Basically, use a 3 instead of an E, 1 instead of an I or L, 0 instead of O, 4 instead of an A etc.


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## AlbacoreA (22 Apr 2009)

Thats just luck. Usually they try all those combinations. 



> .... In the first, the spammer creates a list of all possible combinations of letters and numbers up to a maximum length (15, for example) and then appends the domain name. This would be described as a standard brute force attack.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_Harvest_Attack


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## AlbacoreA (22 Apr 2009)

Google is really good at filtering spam. Or more accurately most ISP's are really bad at it. We have a corporate spam filter at work and obvious spam still gets through it. I could write a better filter myself!


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## car (22 Apr 2009)

as above, gmail all the way Im using it since about week 1 and of 20-30 mails a day, recieve about 1 spam a month.   

Try this though,  set up 2 gmail accounts, 
mysonsmail1@gmail.com mysonsmail2@gmail.com

when registering with sites, use the mysonsmail2 account, and forward mail to the mail1 account from mail2.   can control spam and registered mail easier.

only give out the mail1 account to family and friends.


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## Aurnia (25 Apr 2009)

I can't give advise on email a/c but I can help people on the spam. 

There's this programe G Lock SpamCombat [broken link removed] which filters the email a/c before you open out outlook. Been using it for the last 2 years and it has cut down on my spam from 100 a day (which made me look for a program) to about 5 or so a day. 
Yes it is that good.

The way it works is by Bayesian technology so it learns and keeps learning. You can whitelist by domain, by name, header, subject line etc. Conversely you can blacklist by above and also by IP address and country.
It can be set on a timer to check a/c regularly. As I've broadband and email is practically open all the time, I have it set to check every min and it notifies when you have email to either pass or reject.

Spam can be set to go into a deleted items folder or permenantly off the server before it hits your in box. For any adult spam, I've it set for permanant and not downloaded off server. 

It does take time to train and it's best to start off with your whitelist names and addresss and blacklist any suspicious words in message text.

It is free - you get a box to click but if you want to check more than 1 account, you have to pay for it.

It is by far a superior product to the likes of Eircom's email protector. Or at least it was 2-3 yrs ago when I started looking for something. 

I had another program which I paid for which was web based and did a similar job (without the learning facility) but the company (US based) at the time discontuined the program.

Hope this helps.


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## juke (25 Apr 2009)

I can't comment on e-mail account that may be suitable OP, but-

I have 3 gmail accounts (really not intentional - just happened). The only one that receives spam (c. 1 per every 2 weeks) is the one that uses my full name (first and sir name) 

- my account related to my user name here is spam free.


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