Recourse against vendor giving away email address

Recourse against vendor giving away email address

am 16.08.2005 02:03:54 von johnlciii

Whenever I start doing business with a new e-vendor on the internet, I
create a new email address specifically for them so that I can receive
their confirmations to that address. I never send email using the
addresses, nor do I publish them on websites anywhere.

Every now and then, however, I start getting random spam going to those
addresses. For example, I just got random "mortgage" email coming to
me at "ups@mydomain.com".

I ship things periodically through UPS - but they clearly have violated
their own privacy policy in disseminating my email address to some BS
spam mail list somewhere. I don't have any evidence that they sold my
address - though they may have.

Do I have any recourse against them, other then asking them to "not do
that again in the future", or "use fedex?"

Re: Recourse against vendor giving away email address

am 16.08.2005 05:06:26 von Steve Baker

On 15 Aug 2005 17:03:54 -0700, "johnlciii" wrote:

>Every now and then, however, I start getting random spam going to those
>addresses. For example, I just got random "mortgage" email coming to
>me at "ups@mydomain.com".

I'd guess that that has to do with spammers just guessing addresses
rather than UPS selling or leaking addresses. With the current state of
compromised machines, spammers basically have unlimited processing
power and bandwidth at their disposal.

Steve Baker

Re: Recourse against vendor giving away email address

am 16.08.2005 05:47:02 von TS

Steve Baker wrote:
> On 15 Aug 2005 17:03:54 -0700, "johnlciii" wrote:
> >addresses. For example, I just got random "mortgage" email coming to
> >me at "ups@mydomain.com".

> I'd guess that that has to do with spammers just guessing addresses
> rather than UPS selling or leaking addresses. With the current state of

Quite possible, especially if the name-part is short, since all
brief combinations are typically spammed. Have a name long enough.
The other possibility is that the customer's PC has been broken into
and his/her address book compromised. Selling a single address is
hardly worth one's while. Spamming is a huge mass activity, even if
no alternative is totally out of the question.

All the best, Timo

--
Prof. Timo Salmi ftp & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi ; FIN-65101, Finland
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