posted on February 27, 2001 09:59:39 AM new
I just registered a new domain name last week and changed my eBay e-mail address. This is an address I created just for use on eBay and haven't used anywhere else. And it took a grand total of 5 days before I started getting SPAM to that address.
I did mention my e-mail address in the text of the one and only auction I ran last week, so MAYBE somebody grabbed it off there? Well, just in case, I deleted that e-mail address and created a new one for eBay, and this one I will NOT include in my auction descriptions. Will this solve the problem? Only time will tell. But BOY are those spammers ever quick on the ball!!!
posted on February 27, 2001 11:05:26 AM new
Actually, that sale did so mind-bogglingly well that it has restored a bit of my faith in eBay. Now all I have to do is figure out WHY it did so well. Was it the selling the watches as a lot? Was it the fact that I featured it in two categories? Was it the low starting bid and no reserve? Was it the "Goodbye eBay"?
At the moment I have nothing else to sell and no plans to buy anything else. But it has made me think....
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on February 27, 2001 11:49:40 AM new
That's nothing....
When the business I work for signed up for roadrunner, I created several email addresses, one for each department(you get up to five with roadrunner). One was specifically for eBay. I created the email account and then went to eBay and registered it there. It was late, so I went home. When I checked email the next morning there were three messages for the eBay email account. The first two were spam messages, directly to the email account and the third one was the confirmation message from eBay about the email change.
posted on February 27, 2001 12:35:15 PM new
The silly thing about Ebay's new email system is that it really doesn't prevent spam. If you send an email thru Ebay there is a checkbox that allows you to send a BCC to yourself. Once the BCC is in your mailbox just check the headers and you will see your email address as well as the seller's.
posted on February 27, 2001 12:39:28 PM new
"Wonder how much eBay gets per address????"
I have often wondered that too.
Unfortunately, when you ask them, they don't respond ... not even with their usual jibberish ... must be a sore spot with them (knowing that we are on to them and they don't have a good enough canned response to answer us).
posted on February 27, 2001 02:07:40 PM new
Hello Barry. Although we all know that eBay shares their userbase info with their partners and affiliates (DoubleClick, etc) I think there may also be another reason for the spam you've been receiving. You may find the following articles enlightening:
QUOTED from:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/533619.asp The secret selling of 'Whois'
"Domain name registry coughs up personal info for fee"
END QUOTE
QUOTED from:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-4852561-0.html
"If you're a business with a domain name, Network Solutions is bundling the information you submitted when registering your Web site and selling it to marketers--a move that's raising concerns among some privacy advocates"
"Clearly a lot of people who've registered for domain names in the last couple of years had no idea their data would be sold to marketers," said Andrew Chen, policy analyst with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
END QUOTE
Clearly, the only way on the internet to avoid having your personal information sold is to ONLY give bogus info when filling out the forms. Like one of the articles says, GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT. Unfortunately, this often defeats the purpose of having your own domain and web site.
posted on February 28, 2001 05:04:38 AM new
Has anyone considered the scenario that an eBay staffer might be selling our addresses on the side?
Anyone with access to the user database and a TINY amount of skill with databases could run a query that would create a report showing all contact email addresses, save it to a file, copy it to a floppy, and walk out of the building with thousands of valid addresses to sell to spammers.
godzillatemple -
To foil robot addresses harvesters, use the HTML "entity" for the @ character and a few others in your name. The browsers will get it right, but adderss scavenging robots usually miss it.
