newarkcatholicfan;553587 wrote:I created an email address to sign up on this site and today was the first day I have checked it and to my amazement I have a ton of junk mail in it. Of course I deleted it now I wonder how this email address I created for this site was bombarded with a ton of spam?
I can answer this.
Someone, whether they are here or not, is using a tool called a "scraper" or "harvester." It's an automated program that looks for anything at all with the pattern: <any numbers, letters, and underscores>@<numbers, letters, and hyphens>.<letters>
It's illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act, last updated in 2008 (Sec. 4.b.2.A.i.I), but it is difficult to police, as it is done by people all over the world, and the CAN-SPAM Act only applies to the U.S.
Con_Alma;553593 wrote:Any e-mail address you create will be eventually identified and solicited.
This is actually not true, necessarily.
You probably WILL if you use one of the common free services (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail/MSN, Fastmail, etc.).
And if you are posting it many places, or if you are using it to sign up to either forums or free blog accounts, then it probably will as well.
Finally, if your email address is on any webpage that is highly ranked for legitimate keywords in the major search engines, then you might as well.
Stiffman;553606 wrote:E-mail Marketing 101
1. Obtain e-mail addresses
2. Send out massive quantities of e-mails
Indeed. Works for me.
It's the "how" of #1 that causes so much angst. White-hat opt-ins vv. Black-hat scraping/purchasing.
In my opinion, white hat is always preferable.
justincredible;554468 wrote:If you're trying to imply that I am behind the spam you're wrong.
This is true.
However, it might mean that vBulletin, or whatever you're using for this, has a vulnerability that allows a scraper to access data on the site.
justincredible;554556 wrote:I think the OP should stick to the major league websites. I'm sure his email is safe with them.
Hell no! Larger sites are typically some of the LEAST secure in terms of that kind of info.
