Ask HN: Have you ever been contacted to sell your user's information?

Post by scintill76 » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 5:50 AM UTC

siliconc0w wrote: post #10

I've never been contacted but here is a #lifehack if you use gmail sign up with youremail+domain to track who is selling your info.

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 6:07 AM UTC

scintill76 wrote: post #21

siliconc0w wrote: post #10

I've never been contacted but here is a #lifehack if you use gmail sign up with youremail+domain to track who is selling your info.

Yeah, if you ignore the corollary #shadybusinesshack, which is to strip + suffixes from @gmail.com addresses, or any other domain with gmail MX records. Slightly more advanced trick is exploiting the fact that Gmail ignores . in addresses, so that first.last@gmail.com, firstlast, fi.rst.la.st, firstlast.., are almost infinitely unique encodings of the same mailbox. But again, smart spammers can just remove all dots s…

Post by Gustomaximus » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 6:19 AM UTC

JupiterMoon wrote: post #22

Gustomaximus wrote: post #4

Haha that's not dodgy at all. There is a legitimate business around selling data; This is OK in 3 scenarios I can think offhand: 1) A company collects personal/contact information on behalf of another and is upfront about this at collection 2) A company contacts their list asking if these people would like to share their information with a company 3) Permission to sell information is in the T&C on sign-up of the orig…

This assumes you have only US citizen's data. One Canadian in there for example and you're surely breaking the law.

Post by cperciva » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 6:46 AM UTC

psherman wrote: post #19

hellbanner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and some websites refuse + in email.

That would be preferable to what happened to me once. I tried using a + filter and it was accepted but I never received booking information for my trip. When my trip was getting closer I realized I didn't have a confirmation number, and after a long conversation with customer service, it turned out that instead of " + @gmail.com" my email address was saved as " @gmail.com", so nothing ever made it through to me.

Post by gaadd33 » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 7:18 AM UTC

mechazawa wrote: post #28

Gustomaximus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why. Could you shed light on this view?

It's illegal to sell user data without explicit consent in a lot of countries. It should also be illegal in the US tho due to the Fair Information Practices.