I use my hotmail.com a/c for most of my internet activity, but I never seem to get any junk or spam. Not that I want any, mind you, but I’m wondering why I am so immune to these unsolicited mails. I’ve just got a normal ‘filter’ on the a/c…would that be considered adequate, or is it that nobody feels that I’m worthy of recieving their advertising muck?
Because you’re a lucky bastard.
Hey, no problem. I’ll just forward all of mine to you.
[sub]kidding, just kidding[/sub]
Probably because you only use your address for personal correspondences and things that won’t let you addy out (like the SDMB). My address is posted explicitly on web sites, Usenet, various mailing list archives, etc. so I get a fair amount of spam, customized with my real name! Of course, it seems they can’t get my gender right, what with all the breast enlargement spam I’ve been getting recently.
In my inbox today: "hello (error 15: no name listed), do you want to please your boyfriend?
grumble grumble… I’m not gay and my name is not “error 15” like they keep on saying it is.
I have at least 20 spam emails every morning when I check my hotmail account. It can get over 60 on weekends. For a while, all of my spam went into my junk folder. But in the last few weeks, the spammers have figured out how to send email with me alone in the address list. Now a good chunk ends up in my regular inbox everyday. God, I hate Hotmail! I’m curious, are some websites able to grab information about me from my settings when I visit their sites? In other words, by just going to a site, can they get my email address and add it to a list?
frazeb…there are programs that comb the web for anything resembling an email address, that’s why sometimes on boards where you’re supposed to post your email you sometimes see things like joeblow@NOSPAMhotmail.com. That tells actual people that want to email you to leave out the “no spam” part, but the programs won’t catch it.
kambuckta, I can’t believe you don’t get spam on your Hotmail account. A lucky bastard, indeed.
I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
I never used to receive spam at all to either of my email addresses. (I’m really careful about unchecking boxes about giving out my email address.) I still don’t get any at my school address, but I don’t give that one out other than to school-related things or personal friends. My Yahoo account first started getting spammed (after two-plus years of existence) right after I made it publically accessible on the SDMB about six months ago. Is it possible that spammers found it here?
That depends. Check your browser settings and make sure you haven’t put your e-mail address there. If it is, the information could potentially be transmitted by cookies to those sites. I also advise that you set your browser settings to ask you whether or not you want to accept a cookie. That way, you can filter out the cookies you don’t need (most of which come from advertisers) and accept those that are needed for pages to work correctly. Googling “cookies” should bring up more information.
frazeb , the other day I thought I’d try the Microsoft internet radio thing, and it guided me through a few pages of registering. On the third or fourth screen there was a field to enter your email address, and something about the .net passport program…and my hotmail email address was already there in the field! So somehow my computer was told my email address. Since hotmail and this internet radio deal are both Microsoft, I just figured they are doing things I don’t understand. But yes, somehow they can engineer this puzzling action.
I learned a little too late that I should have disabled my e-mail links on my Web site. Instead, my e-mail is posted on the page like this:
(e e cummings retro mix)
bill
-at-
planetpeschel
dot
com
I’m averaging about a 8-10 slices o’ spam a day.
Lengh of time you’ve had the address makes a difference, too, I think. My husband isn’t casual about where he gives his out, but he’s used the same email address for ten years–it only has to get on one spam list, and then it eventually gets sold and resold til we get spam in korean. Deletig the morning spam is just part of my routine anymore.
Maybe you don’t really exist.
I’ve had my hotmail address for about three years and I have also, never got any spam. Not that I want it either, but one feels isolated and left out - some kind of cyberspace leper.
I have no idea what I did differently from friends who do get spam. I don’t really give my address to web sites (other than this one and maybe two others).
Hey, you’re not alone! Maybe we could start a support group for people who don’t get Spam?