# Is AOL trying to establish an Email tax? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2006, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777 "2006-02-23T13:20:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777/21 "2006-02-24T15:58:09Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > If the birthday greeting from Auntie Em is blocked from your Inbox by mistake, you’ll survive. But if a destructive virus gets in, maybe kiss your $1000 machine, and all its files, goodbye. Maybe you’re onto something there. Better 1000 guilty people go free than one innocent person be put to death. Maybe the more destructive risk carries the greater weight in making choices. You need a virus protection program. Don’t try and solve the virus problem with a spam filter. Also I think your analogy is bad. In the context of mail throwing out a good email is putting the innocent to death, and spam getting through is allowing the guilty to walk free. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777/22 "2006-02-24T19:28:50Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > My home e-mail has been strictly kept for family and friends. As a result I get literally zero spam mails to my home account. I’m curious as to how common this is. I own several domains, which each have less than a half-dozen email addresses associated with them. As an experiment, I created a new email address on one of them. I never posted anything to Usenet, an Internet message board, or anything similar using this address. It was _only_ used to exchange messages with a couple of friends. I got my first spam message to this account _less than 48 hours_ after it was created! > [@Johanna](#): > > If the birthday greeting from Auntie Em is blocked from your Inbox by mistake, you’ll survive. But if a destructive virus gets in, maybe kiss your $1000 machine, and all its files, goodbye. Auntie Em is already whitelisted on my computer. But you’re looking at this wrong: If a valid message gets zapped, I may have just lost a contract, author appearance, book signing gig, or something similar that could have made me thousands of dollars. If a virus gets through, big deal. I’ve received thousands of virus emails over the years (I write about hackers, and have often called virus authors “scum,” so I’m a target). _I have never been infected by a virus_ because I don’t use Microsoft email tools, allow downloaded images, allow scripts in emails to execute, run attachments, click on links in emails, and so forth. It’s all about paying attention. In a nutshell, then, killing valid messages is a _BAD_ thing for business email. Allowing a few spams or viruses through is no big deal when you have intelligent and well-informed people running the computer. Obviously, the rules are very different for a large corporation where some percentage of the employees are idiots who would click on a link to a “fun game” from someone they’ve never heard of. ---
**Author:** ![Tyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e56c9b/32.png) [@Tyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyr)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777/23 "2006-02-24T21:58:31Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > I’m curious as to how common this is. I own several domains, which each have less than a half-dozen email addresses associated with them. As an experiment, I created a new email address on one of them. I never posted anything to Usenet, an Internet message board, or anything similar using this address. It was _only_ used to exchange messages with a couple of friends. > > I got my first spam message to this account _less than 48 hours_ after it was created! As a counter point, I have had various hotmail and Gmail acounts that are simply variations of my (fairly common) name. My current Gmail account gets no more than 14 spam emails a week, despite the fact that I use it almost any time I am asked for an email address. I don’t know why this is the case. It can’t possibly be my name because my mom uses the same format ([first initial][last name][numbers to make it unique]) and she gets a much more typical amount of spam. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777/24 "2006-02-24T23:05:58Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > I’m curious as to how common this is. I own several domains, which each have less than a half-dozen email addresses associated with them. As an experiment, I created a new email address on one of them. I never posted anything to Usenet, an Internet message board, or anything similar using this address. It was _only_ used to exchange messages with a couple of friends. > > I got my first spam message to this account _less than 48 hours_ after it was created! I do not know but I wonder if the issue here is whoever is hosting your domain is selling your e-mail addresses. Somehow, someway someone got your new e-mail address out there and into the hands of spammers. I suppose a spammer might just try to throw mail at random addresses but that seems inefficient. My home account is via SBC and I am guessing they will not sell my e-mail address to outside sources (I never checked to see what their policy is on this). But I can say I have gotten close to zero spam mails in 3 years (I know I said zero before but on thinking about it I think I have gotten a few but it is very, very low…like less than 10 in three years). ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2006, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777/25 "2006-02-25T00:32:40Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I do not know but I wonder if the issue here is whoever is hosting your domain is selling your e-mail addresses. I doubt it, because I’d be getting a much higher volume of spam if they were doing that. I set up a “catchall” email account, which receives all email directed to invalid email addresses at one of my domains. I checked to see what it caught. There was a lot of spam mail sent to [admin@invisiblewombat.com](mailto:admin@invisiblewombat.com)[sup]1[/sup], [webmaster@invisiblewombat.com](mailto:webmaster@invisiblewombat.com), [postmaster@invisiblewombat.com](mailto:postmaster@invisiblewombat.com), and other fairly obvious addresses _which have never existed for this domain_. There were also several spams addressed to [bill@invisiblewombat.com](mailto:bill@invisiblewombat.com) (there’s never been a “Bill” here) and a whole lot of “one-off” addresses that looked like likely guesses. I know they aren’t old leftover addresses, because I’m the only one that’s ever owned the domain I used for this experiment, and I’ve had it for nine years. With **Tyr** ’s system of picking email addresses, they’re not likely guesses. I think, however, that a large number of domains out there are likely to have an “admin” or a “bill.” Since the email address I was using was my first name (not an uncommon name), I think it likely that it was just a random guess. [sup]1[/sup] No, [invisiblewombat.com](http://invisiblewombat.com) not my real domain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-aol-trying-to-establish-an-email-tax/345777.md?page=1)