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Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

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Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#351

Post by jonahbenton »

mbreese wrote: post #334
jonahbenton wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe for 20+ years has been one of the largest data brokers. They know exactly what they are doing.

I thought it was just due to the (widely known) Adobe data breaches?

Oh no no, it's a material and strategic part of their business. Here's a good overview of Adobe's role from a few years ago. They have been in this business since at least the early 2000s. They are like a mini-Google- selling a variety of personal and enterprise products (including "content management") that have "audience" and "optimization" components that tie into their brokering business, in addition to engaging directly with other ad ecosystem players.

https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1198739105275875328...

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#352

Post by orangepurple »

jon-wood wrote: post #255
nicolas_t wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar experience, I received emails from his families with children photos, emails from his certification, notices about his internship, etc.. I sent a few emails to his family explaining this, they told me that I was wrong. I gave up and just ignore all of those emails. It's on gmail and I don't use gmail for important things anyway...

> they told me that I was wrong What a bizarre response... somebody who isn't the person you intended to email has replied to you from the address you sent the message to. What could possibly make someone think that the person replying is the one who was wrong?

Print out the emails you get from them, highlight the recipient email address, then mail them a love letter containing their own messages. Put a parking garage as the return address.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#353

Post by skocznymroczny »

I used to have my email account hacked. They also hacked my Origin account, luckily I only had one game there (the account got banned for suspicious actitive). Now this is understandable. But for some reason, my email since then got used to sign up to universities in places like India and Singapore. Every week I get 1-2 emails from various branches of these universities. I don't understand why would anyone do that. I replied to some of them that they aren't reaching their intended recipient, but then I get emails from another department the next week.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#354

Post by a2128 »

I signed up for Skrill with a "+skrill" alias thinking it might be a good alternative to PayPal, and soon began receiving shady casino and gambling related spam emails from third parties sent to that Skrill alias, which they didn't even bother to strip out.

I could not trust them as a financial service provider after that, so I closed my account.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#355

Post by Engineering-MD »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #353

I used to have my email account hacked. They also hacked my Origin account, luckily I only had one game there (the account got banned for suspicious actitive). Now this is understandable. But for some reason, my email since then got used to sign up to universities in places like India and Singapore. Every week I get 1-2 emails from various branches of these universities. I don't understand why would anyone do that. I…

To me it sounds like a misspelled email address, depending on how unique/random your own email address is

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#356

Post by kabdib »

GoDaddy leaked my account's email address about ten years ago. Contacting GoDaddy support resulted in absolutely no response. (My guess is an unreported breach).

Also: Do not ever give a non-throwaway email (or worse, your phone number) to a politician. Ever.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#357

Post by zrail »

gwbas1c wrote: post #331

The absolute worst offender are political activists: (In the US) I attended my town's meeting for a political party in 2016. I put my name and email on the list with an email address that I made up on the spot. It continues to get HAMMERED by every up-and-coming politician in the state who's trying to make a name for themselves. A few years ago I attended Senator Ed Markey's roadshow for the Green New Deal. I again u…

> The absolute worst offender are political activists: (In the US)

The alias I used for one of the big donation platforms has apparently been given to every single person running for any political office in the state along with many out of state. It gets dozens of emails a day, most of which automatically end up in spam.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#359

Post by 0des »

gwbas1c wrote: post #342
gwbas1c wrote: post #331

The absolute worst offender are political activists: (In the US) I attended my town's meeting for a political party in 2016. I put my name and email on the list with an email address that I made up on the spot. It continues to get HAMMERED by every up-and-coming politician in the state who's trying to make a name for themselves. A few years ago I attended Senator Ed Markey's roadshow for the Green New Deal. I again u…

Funny story that I should add: In 2003 someone tried to get me to join Quickstar, a new initiative from Amway. (It's now been merged into Amway.) I gave them "quickstar@..." A few months later I got a cease-and-desist to the email address, and the moron who tried to get me involved called me up and started threatening me. I had to explain to their lawyer what a catch-all is. Fortunately, he was a very reasonable pers…

That type of behavior is grounds for an IRL meetup.

Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?

#360

Post by hedora »

narag wrote: post #23

I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…

The paypal thing sounds like a perfect use case for the CAN-SPAM act.
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