|
Most e mail spammers DO NOT get your address because you are on the distribution list of legitimate email publications!
The number one place spammers got email addresses used to be from posts on Usenet newsgroups (also called "discussion groups" on some systems, "bulletin boards" on others). Newsgroups are "publicly" readable, whether you post your message on your local ISP or on a major 'net service', your message is typically spread worldwide by Usenet in a matter of hours, and it -- with your attached address -- is easily found by advertisers.
The current most-common place to get your address, is from web pages. If your e-mail address is listed on a web page anywhere on the Internet, especially if that page is listed in a search engine or directory, spammers will find it, and fairly quickly.
Other sources for addresses actually includes messages you sent privately to friends -- if they forward your note to a large group (which happens all the time, especially if you're telling a funny story), and a spammer happens to be a friend of a friend of a friend, your address can easily be pulled from the headers. Other places include open email discussion lists and, ironically, web pages that say "put your address here if you want to be on a 'do not mail' list; often, these lists are sold to the very advertisers you want to avoid! This is another indication of the honesty of the advertisers! All they are interested in is getting your money -- they do not care about ethics or honesty. There are legitimate anti-spam web sites that ask you to sign up in anti-spam campaigns. Such support is important, but how do you know if they're really anti-spam, or fronts for the spammers themselves? Be suspicious of any sites you aren't absolutely sure of! The bottom line is, even if you are careful never to post on a discussion list, or never to have your address listed on a web site, you can still get onto spam lists -- and you cannot get off. But even if you are careful that your address is never listed anywhere, you can still get spam: spammers use lists of common screen names and random words, then attach it to popular domains -- bob@domain.com will likely get spam, even if the address has never been posted anywhere.
The resulting lists of addresses are often collected by list merchants (typically spammers themselves) who then sell (usually by using spam, of course) the lists to other spammers. Even if you manage to shut down one spammer, there are always more who already have your address -- if you are getting spam now, you will likely continue to get it for as long as you have that address. |
