Some of us who have been following the thread about the cat that saved the 4-year-old boy from a vicious dog received emails thanking us for signing a petition to save the dog from execution. I know I signed no such petition, since I think execution is appropriate in this case. On the (current) last page of the thread there is this:
Since carniverousplant only uses a certain email address for SDMB, it suggests that whoever sent the email address got his address – and the rest of our addresses and names – from here.
If your address is public in your user profile it can be picked up manually by anyone. It is possible that your public email may have been harvested by someone in that fashion.
As far as we know we have not had a breach in systems for quite some time. (The pending Google issue is another issue entirely involving the ad system and the Straight Dope database is not a part of that issue.)
On your Control Panel, under Settings & Options, click Edit Options. Under Messaging & Notification, uncheck “Receive Email from Other Members”. Keep “Enable Private Messaging” checked.
That should remove your email address from public display in your Contact Info and still allow PMs.
You may remove your email address from view by clicking User CP/Edit Options and unchecking the box under “You can allow other members to send you email messages.”
The settings for controlling your PMs are under this tab as well, further down the page, and you can adjust those to suit.
They screwed up my name - saje is just a screen name and whatever odd last name they added isn’t mine. I think it’s a shot in the dark, or was at any rate. I can’t remember if my email is visible, I usually don’t have it that way but I think I may have left it so here, for some reason.
And back to private email it is! Friends only, and I have no friends
