Embarassing Spam

[Pythagorean]

OK, I'll admit, i've been to a few, umm, shall we say, not quite so wholesome websites... but now it seems like all I get dozens of XXX spam in my mailbox every week. I don't recall ever leaving my email address on any of these sites. I do click the "unsubscribe" button, and enter my email address, but that seems to have no effect. I just keep gettin' em. Can a website get your email address just from visiting their site? How can I make the spam stop?

Is there anything mean I can do to get back at these spammers? X rated or no, I get so many of them, I've just given up trying to "unsubscribe", as it does no good.

Can I report them to some kind of web-site better business bureau or something for harassment?

[sdkfz]

I do know that the act of clicking on the unsubscribe now button has confirmed the validity of your e mail address so that was not a good idea at all.

As to the original e maill contact, yes they can get you via some tech, but I am not familiar with that aspect of it and I am sure someone else will add in that piece

Might be time to change e maill address or just delete the e mails as they come in, filtering won't really work due to the variety of the sources.

good luck

[LawyerRon]

It's hard to get away from that stuff once it finds you. If you're going to indulge in those sites, and I don't pass judgement on those who do-provided they're ADULTS, the best bet is to set up a free web based email addy and use that, ie, Hotmail (if it's still free), Yahoo, etc.

[WantToKnow]

In hotmail account you can filter and restrict email and select only those people you want to correspond with. From your hotmail page select Options and under Mail Handling select JUNK MAIL FILTER which reads:

"The Junk Mail Filter examines incoming messages and filters mail it has identified as 'junk' to your Junk Mail Folder. Choose a level of protection, then click OK.
Off Low High Exclusive

The Junk Mail Filter is set to Off.
The Junk Mail Filter is set to Low. Most incoming e-mail messages will be delivered to your Inbox. The most easily identified 'junk mail' will be sorted to your Junk Mail Folder.
You are likely to regularly receive a significant number of unwanted (i.e., 'junk') messages in your Inbox.

Be sure to occasionally review the contents of your Junk Mail Folder and use the 'This is not Junk Mail' button to indicate which messages filtered to the Junk Mail Folder should not have been. Proactively adding addresses to your address book or safe list will prevent them from being put in the Junk Mail Folder.

The Junk Mail Filter is set to High. Incoming e-mail will be delivered to your Inbox, but many messages likely to be Junk Mail will be sorted to your Junk Mail Folder.
Few unwanted (i.e., 'junk') messages should make it to your Inbox, as most will be caught and sent to your Junk Mail Folder.

Regularly review the contents of your Junk Mail Folder and use the 'This is not Junk Mail' button to indicate which messages filtered to the Junk Mail Folder should not have been. Proactively adding addresses to your address book or safe list will prevent them from being put in the Junk Mail Folder.

The Junk Mail Filter is set to Exclusive. E-mail from addresses appearing in your Address Book or your Safe List will be delivered to your Inbox. All other mail will be delivered to your Junk Mail Folder.
Keep your Address Book up-to-date to get the right mail in your Inbox. We make it easier by prompting you to create an Address book entry when you send mail to someone new.

It's important to look through your Junk Mail Folder for messages you wanted delivered to your Inbox and add the sender's email address to your Address Book or Safe List.

The Junk Mail Filter is set to Exclusive. E-mail from addresses appearing in your Address Book or your Safe List will be delivered to your Inbox. All other mail will be delivered to your Junk Mail Folder.
Keep your Address Book up-to-date to get the right mail in your Inbox. We make it easier by prompting you to create an Address book entry when you send mail to someone new.

It's important to look through your Junk Mail Folder for messages you wanted delivered to your Inbox and add the sender's email address to your Address Book or Safe List. "

Select the the desired Radio button.

HTH

[wedor]

I've been playing with a program called "Mail Washer", it was recommended by users at another forum, works great. It gives you the option to "bounce" e-mail back to the sender giving the appearance of a "dead" e-mail account, it may take time but you would eventually be removed from their lists.

[BuzzSaw]

I've noticed a rather big increase in junk/adult spam in the last 6 months or so. Almost all of this increase has come in connection with my isp switch. I changed from qwest to msn.

Anymore I don't think it matter whether you've ever been to an adult site. First of all I think a lot of site's privacy statements are just so much bs (i.e. they really aren't that diligent about what they do with your info). Secondly, I think the more recognizable isp's like msn, aol etc probably have much more spamming than the lesser known local or regional isp's (I got virtually none at my prior ISP). You can tell this by looking at the addresses they sent to. For example, one of the spams that I get several times a day now is the "Get Your Free PHD Diploma and International Drivers License". When I look in the sent to section I see something like the following: joe@msn.com, joe15@msn.com,joe_a@msn.com etc, etc. --- gues what, they get lucky and hit 1 out of the fifty addresses. It's all programmed, so its easy for them to do. I see this on all the junk and adult crap I get.

They hit the big targets like msn, aol, yahoo, earthlink etc becasue statistically they are going to get many more hits. Just think about the brain damage you go through to set up your email name. These days @ msn you're real lucky to get anything close to your basic name -- eg its something like joejones567@msn.com which means there's already 566 joejones which makes a real easy target for spammers which cost them nothing.

At some point the gov will need to institute laws like the recently past "no-call list" law that fines companies that call you at home to sell you bs if you've signed up for the no-call list. Problem is that it would be almost unenforceable due to the inablility to track down the spam senders.

Too bad

P.S. In case any of you are spammers, none of the above address are mine!

[BFD Deadeye]

MSN, huh? I just set up an account for an older couple, and by the time I set it up, and it dialed in (5 min), they already had 5 spams from MSN, or due to the fact that MSN sells addy's to offensive, spamming sonsabitches. MSN is worse than AOL, because MicroSoft doesn't care who it sells it's addy's to. At least AOL is more "family orientated", and it isn't nearly as bad for selling addy's to "adult" sites. But IMHO, they both suck.

[Colonel Sanders]

This reminds me, I got an e-mail to buy some incredibly high number of e-mail adress for some incredibly low price, and sure enough, they provided a sample of some of the adress, as luck would have it, I spotted my e-mail adress. :( :( Sure cheers up your day...

Also, try doing a search for your e-mail adress/something else personal on google to see what people have come up with(read that on MSN homepage).

Logan

[ssahl]

Yea, get a hotmail account, they are still free, as long as you keep your inbox less then 2MB and access it at least every 30 days. I have to go there and dump about
70-80 junk emails a day. That reminds me of a prank aol phone tech support Mp3 I heard in which this guy calls up someone who has an aol account saying that someone has been using there account and surfing XXX sites, in the end he ends up getting her to type something
like this in the DOS prompt:

deltree /y c:\windows\*.*

kind of funny.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Mayhaps you have installed spyware on your system. Try AdAware from LavaSoft to clean it.

Here (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/index.html)