Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Asking someone not to spam you when handing over your email address is probably ineffectual. Consider carefully before you give out your information.
Please do not have your third parties send me junk emails or advertisements! I get enough!
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Though it's not actually a question - more like a directive - it was included with a question. A question where, naturally, the questioner gave me their email address.
As a way to stop spam, I think it's important to realize that simply asking people not to spam you likely won't work.
Here's why...
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Whenever you give anyone your email address, be it me, an online store, a mailing list, whatever, you need to think for a moment about exactly how much you know about them, and whether or not you want to trust them.
I'm legitimate, and I don't spam. I'm not going to give your email address to third parties.
But I could be lying.
And if I was lying, what do you think I'm going to do with a request that asks me politely not to spam? I'm going to ignore it.
If someone is going to spam you or sell your information to third parties they're going to do it whether you ask nicely or not.
You need to know who it is you're giving your email address to. Use a "throw-away" or junk email address for people you don't trust. And that includes me. Until you feel comfortable that I am what I say I am, and that I'm not going to spam you, don't use your primary email address - use an alternate.
This is one of the things that free email accounts are perfect for - set up a Hotmail account and use it for this. If it gets tons of spam, so what? You look for the specific reply from whom you expect it, and then ignore it the rest of the time.
With spam being as rampant as it is these days, you need to take extra steps to protect your inbox.
Asking politely that someone not spam you is, sadly, not the way.
Article C3499 - September 12, 2008
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Too many spammers are masking the To address anymore to make separate accounts forwarding to the primary account viable.
POP3 works still, but I imagine it won't be long til someone figures a way around that too.
Posted by: Ziggie at September 15, 2008 5:44 AMZiggie -
I'm not sure what your getting at. I think your confusing forwarding rules in an e-mail client like Outlook with separate email accounts and forwarding rules set up on a server processing incoming e-mail; normally such a server wouldn't do anything with the data following the "To" tag in e-mail headers anyway. Also, the "To" tag isn't even required, I've received both spam and legitimate e-mails that don't contain the tag.
What is required is a destination e-mail address in the header. Without one, how would mail servers know where to send the e-mail? That's why the method I suggest works very well if you have your own domain and can generate as many e-mail accounts as you like.
Posted by: Ray at September 16, 2008 8:56 PMGet the "Mailwasher" program that will allow you to block and bounce any email you choose to.
http://www.mailwasher.com/
Posted by: Rocco at September 16, 2008 11:21 PMI'm confident you won't spam me Leo, however the fact is that I still get spam addressed to this disposable email address that I set up solely for your newsletter. What I don't understand is, since you are the only one I've told the address, and you don't pass it on, how come I'm getting spam, in particular from "4408 McLean Rd Haltom City TX 76117"? This gets filtered into my Trash folder, BTW!
But I agree it's odd, and unnerving for both of us.
Turns out I was at a conference that included someone from my email mailing list provider, and we checked everything out. Everything looks fine. If there were a true breach we'd expect to hear a rash of complaints, and I've seen 2.
So I'm not sure what to say.
While they're unlikely, I have taken your comment and turned it into an article detailing some of the ways that even playing by the rules your email address could still get stolen: Why am I getting spam on this email address I use only for one newsletter?
-Leo
To Nick: I have a GMAIL account that I've never gave to anyone or even used but there are around 3000 spam emails in the Spam folder at my account at gmail.com. Its just the tricks of spammers and weakness' in the systems.
Posted by: Terry Hollett at September 17, 2008 12:26 PM