Have our email addys been sold?

I think their talking about their own computers now; not this site. :-)

No one is even talking about this problem belonging to DG...............I don't think so anyway?????????

It could very well be that shady folks have no problem paying for
membership on Dave's. Certainly Dave cannot filter memberships
based on intent.

This applies to any and all websites, paid memberships or not.

;-) A happy member, KM

just to see what would happen, I put my email address in my addy exchange for just a few hours..............................my inbox wall full of everything from viagra to selling stocks.............of course, I blocked the senders and bounced them back.................then went straight to my addy exchange and took my email off.................no more since then.....................

So, we do know that people out there are looking for email addresses..............won't do that again...........even as an experiment..................

You are right........WUVIE.............I am a happy camper here on Dave's site..............

Before people panic, I want to clarify that you're talking about some other address exchange, not the one on DG? I don't even think our email addresses are in the DG one, just snail mail addies.

Ecrane.............i should not have told that story........................the addy exchange doesn't have the email unless we are dumb enough to add it where the User ID for ebay is.........that is what i did.................................no one should worry as no one would be as dumb as i was to put my email there ..............................

gessiegail, I'm pleased you did that just to show how careful we should all be, and no way was that dumb!

As I have never put my address in the DG exchange I don't know what the options are, but I think you have shown us just what can happen. I somewhat now feel vindicated for what I was so viciously attacked for.

A big thank you! Safety first is always advisable, and I have not as yet had any prolems here to do with security.

I didn't get hurt but i was prepared to see if i got unwanted and unsolicited emails..........first of all, they wouldn't have even gotten in my box if they had had a virus...................but I still just blocked them and bounced them back........................

If you placed your email address in the DG address exchange for just a brief period of time, it is HIGHLY unlikely that it had anything to do with the spam email you received. That's not to say people shouldn't be careful where they place their personal information, but let's look at the facts:

Someone would have to have subscribed, then figured out that an address exchange existed, added enough information to get access and be constantly looking through the entire exchange in the hopes that someone would come along and place their information in there.

THEN they would have to instantly broadcast your email address to whoever sends out that spam so they could start sending you spam.

(In contrast, Hallson's memberlist has had email addresses available to the public for years - and it's only now that someone took advantage of it.)

Even more incredible - the spam stopped when you took your email address out of there? Once you're on those lists, you're on them until you change your address. There's no opt-out.

Sorry, but that defies possibility.

I agree with Terry, I think it's just a coincidence that you got those spam messages at the same time you had your email addy in the exchange. Just because they happened at the same time doesn't mean they were necessarily related to each other in any way. The sort of people who are sending out the Viagra spam aren't harvesting emails off of sites like this, they have WAY faster (and cheaper) methods of getting addresses. I could see someone like the gardening company in the original post looking here for addresses (although I would still argue that they would be unlikely to go to all the trouble to pay for a subscription and then dig through the addy exchange), but there's absolutely no way the Viagra people would go to all that trouble.

sorry I have caused so much trouble when i don't even know how a computer works............i will not say anymore.............sorry........................I am not even saying that I am right...........it is just the first time in months that ads like that came through to me inbox...............don't anyone worry................we are safer here on DG than any other sites................

How about the guy from Israel who wants to give me his family fortune
if I would just cash the check?

LOL. Just kidding.

Gessie, I wonder if someone reset your filters on your email. Depending on the email program you are using, you can control to a degree, how much stuff gets thru to your inbox. Just a thought...

Everyone needs to know that the computer tech is my best friend..................i mess up the computer all the time changing things..........................he always tells me i can't ruin my computer so badly that he can't fix it and that the only way I am going to learn is to keep trying...............

I actually emailed him on Saturday to tell him he needed to be proud of me.............i didn't like a software camera upload program he had put on last week............so I removed the adobe photo thing in the control panel all by myself and downloaded an updated Corel program and it worked!!!!!!!!!!

So there is no telling what I did or have done to this computer..................

GO GESSIE!!! LOL.. ya, I'm a Wussie so my learning curve will lag WAY BEHIND yours!

no, you won't be lagging behind me...................every time my grandchildren (young ones at that) come to see me I can't even find my way around again..................they don't hurt the computer ..............they just change everything to suit their preferences...............i even got a credit card with two 30.00 charges..............when i called the grands to find out what they were, they reminded me that i told them they could do it??????????????????????

***********remember, they only have access to what they ordered on my computer.......not their own at home (LOL)
They told me to look on my desktop to find all their stuff...........sure enough ............there it is............they are all kinds of games, etc....................whatever the young kids do with parent's permission that is not "MY SPACE"....................

Gessie....I used to have the Technician on Speed Dial...LOL Jo

Here is how desperate I need him all the time.................he lives 25 minutes away and doesn't drive because of health issues................so I go pick him up at his computer shop that he owns and where he builds computers.......................bring him back out here...........take him back and a week later.............we do the same routine!!!!!!!! (LOL))

Now You got it right as I has tell about it!

At first I read "bring him back out here...Take him back a week later..." I'm thinking, "Dang, that woman keeps him there a WEEK?!" LOL!!

no gardenwife (LOL)..............he is 30, happily married with children and I am an ole' granny who bugs him to death.............but he is nice and doesn't mind...............

No, my mind just went running on about how complicated the computer issues must have been! LOL I knew I'd misread it as soon as I got that mental image of a guy sitting and drinking pot after pot of strong coffee as he tried to right everything.

Ok................I will have to think real hard.....................and get back to you, Dave...........let me do some checking.............I also got a message from Nit n Nat wanting me to test a flickr photo for a garden site they have set up...........I just deleted that and didn't bounce it back.........

OK..........I looked in my deleted messages.............They came in starting at 5:30pm on Sept.30 and continued until Oct 1.....................that would have been a Sunday afternoon thinking that my ad would be coming out on Monday the first..............and that i would need to put my email there for paypal...................when i got the junk mail, i ran back on Monday and took my email off my profile information.................realizing that i could give people my paypal information if they wanted in a dmail. The last one on Oct. 1 came from Nit n Nath........i spelled it wrong in the last post...........would i be interested in testing flickr for their garden site...........but they didn't say the name of their garden site.............
The ones on Sunday were for different products for energy , etc...........plus the viagra one.......
Hope I haven't confused you..........

Just go to Flickr.com directly and set up your own account Gessiegail.

I already have a flickr account................I am getting confused...............don't think that Dave is looking into what you said...................

gessiegail,

Thank you for this information. I checked the logs and confirm that at 6:14pm (central time) on Sep 30th, 2007 you entered your information into the address exchange.

I checked the logs, and not one person viewed your entry. Not even one. It's a literal impossibility that your spam came from your entry in the address_exchange.

So there it is for posterity's sake.

Dave

thanks so much............it certainly sets my mind at ease..............that is very nice of you to take the time to do that for me and all of us..............
gail

Happy to do it!

Dave, you are awesome!!!

Thanks for clarifying that once and for all, Dave. The original question and the subject of this thread was "Have our email addys been sold?" and it has been answered now.

Thanks, Dave.

I never thought mine had been sold..........sorry I strayed from the topic