Has anybody here been getting subscribed to a lot of junk mailing lists, lately? I've been wading through them trying to get unsubscribed and wondered, since the 'users' list pulls up in Yahoo... has anybody else been harvested?
OTish: Spam?
Posted by Neva on Tue 14 Aug 2001 09:20 PM — 2 posts, 13,427 views.
I haven't got much more spam than usual, which is quite a lot, because my email address is on the bottom of every page.
What you can do is click on "Edit Profile" at the top of the forum page, and uncheck the "show email" box - then your email address will not be disclosed, and thus cannot be harvested.
You can also check the "allow mail" box, so that other forum users can send you a message via the forum, thus they do not need to know your email address - which is helpful, if they want to give you some private help in solving a problem.
Meanwhile, beware that the less scrupulous junk mail lists use the "unsubscribe" feature in a way that is not quite what you might expect. They have large databases of email addresses, quite a few of which are out-of-date, however if someone replies to a junk mail (with the unsubscribe message) then that email address is marked as "active" and you are likely to get more junk mail, not less.
Of course, this does not apply to large, reputable companies with a reputation to protect, but may well apply to those who you have never heard of.
What you can do is click on "Edit Profile" at the top of the forum page, and uncheck the "show email" box - then your email address will not be disclosed, and thus cannot be harvested.
You can also check the "allow mail" box, so that other forum users can send you a message via the forum, thus they do not need to know your email address - which is helpful, if they want to give you some private help in solving a problem.
Meanwhile, beware that the less scrupulous junk mail lists use the "unsubscribe" feature in a way that is not quite what you might expect. They have large databases of email addresses, quite a few of which are out-of-date, however if someone replies to a junk mail (with the unsubscribe message) then that email address is marked as "active" and you are likely to get more junk mail, not less.
Of course, this does not apply to large, reputable companies with a reputation to protect, but may well apply to those who you have never heard of.