Many web sites on the internet require registering with your email address in order to view content or download shareware. Some of these sites are entirely ethical and do not add your email address to mailing lists without your permission or they tell you up front that you will be added, but they bury that fact in their privacy policy somewhere. Some web sites are entirely unethical and not only add you to their lists, but sell your email address to other sites and/or to spammers.
One way to combat this is to use one of the Privacy.net Stealth Email Addresses they have created specifically to reply back if the address is spammed with:
"The person who provided you with this e-mail address did not perceive value in receiving your e-mail and/or did not want to provide you with their identity. The person did not "opt-in" to your e-mail and/or did not subscribe to your mailing list. If this address is "subscribed" to a mailing list then you have not taken steps to verify subscribers to the list. Please remove me@privacy.net from your list. You may wish to consider concentrating on improving the value of your offers so consumers will request to receive them rather than taking steps to avoid receiving your e-mail."
The addresses you can use are:
me@privacy.net
me0@privacy.net
me1@privacy.net
me2@privacy.net
me3@privacy.net
me4@privacy.net
me5@privacy.net
me6@privacy.net
me7@privacy.net
me8@privacy.net
me9@privacy.net
Of course, if the web site you are registering at requires you to reply to a confirmation email before you are truly registered, then this will not work, since you'll never receive the email. But . . . since this type of registration, known as "confirmed opt-in" is only practiced by ethical web sites and mailing lists, the question of trust is answered by the fact that they use "confirmed opt-in" registration.
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by newview  edited by Sarah
last modified: 2003-05-27 07:53:46 |
