I just signed up for a brand new account with hotmail(Tuesday, June 3, 2001 - 1:10 pm). I have not and will not ever use this account for a single thing.
I wonder how long it will take for me to start getting emails at my new address…
Let the betting begin. The one who comes closest to how many days it takes me to start getting SPAM wins.
Heembo
It’s pretty hard to tell without knowing the sort of address you have. Obviously you can’t say what it is, but if it’s a common word, name, or variation of such, you’ll get SPAM within weeks, if not sooner.
If it’s a completely random user name, and you never use it, you’d be lucky(?) to get SPAM in 6 months or so; it could take years, but then the spammers are working harder than ever. I had my account (and used it) for 2 years before I received any SPAM. Even then, UCE comes very infrequently, though I do get junk from actual companies I’ve done business with.
Heh. I did the same thing as a test 2 years ago, and got my first spam within a week, and was getting upwards of 30 or so spams a week until I gave up and quit checking the account 3 months later.
Hotmail deletes inactive accounts after a set period, so I no longer have the account. I would not be surprised to hear that they sell email addys to spammers, either. As an ISP admin, we have been approached a few times to sell our customer lists and never have - the MOST we were offered was $.02 / name.
–tygre
I just want to say that SPAM refers to the luncheon “meat” produced by Hormel Foods, and is a registered trademark of that company. Lower-case spam refers to junk e-mail.
At least, that’s what I always do to differentiate the two, and Hormel seems to like it that way:
http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm
My husband has a hotmail account, almost never uses it, has only given it to a few people. He’s had the account for about 3 years and has never received one single piece of junk mail. I, on the other hand, get porn offers, loan offers, “get your degree at home” offers and everything else. The “bulk mail” folder option worked for a while, but the spammers found a way around that…:mad:
I abandoned my original Hotmail account. The last time I logged in (over two years ago) it contained 267 messages, all of which were spam.
My second Hotmail account was opened in the summer of 1998. I do use it, and have even given it out in some places I was sure would originate spam. Haven’t had any yet.
One if my ISP email addresses gets half a dozen every day. There must be a lot of small penises out there.
I have 2 hotmail accounts to keep stuff out of my personal Outlook account.
One has never gotten a single piece of spam, so I know Hotmail itself doesn’t sell the name. (I use it only for work, so I can reach it while out on the road.)
The other never got anything else but spam. I use that one to sign up at web sites. I just go there every 30 days so they don’t close it and erase everything without even looking at it.
I did much the same thing with my yahoo account. One thing that’s amusing is the type of spam you get when you play around with your profile.
E.g. once I upped my age from 27 to 58, I got a lot less loan/mortage spam and much more porn and fake university degree spam. Amusing.
I have a Hotmail account that gets heaps of spam, but it’s not because Hotmail sell it - it’s because spammers guess the address. It’s my common first name, and my common last name, and the year I was born. However, one of my accounts never gets spam because it’s a combination of my initials, my birthdate and my address - a1234b123c@… for example. Most spam is just addressed to combinations of letters and numbers - if you make your Hotmail address as complex as the example above, you’ll be a rare case if you get spammed (this depends on how you use it of course!!).
Tygre said
Do you mean that you would sell if the price was right? I certainly hope not - spam is an activity that needs to be stamped out completely. If my ISP sold my address, I would be beyond furious, and I would dump them for a company with a more responsible anti-spam policy.
As of this morning (Thursday July 5, 2001 8:11am), no messages at all in my inbox. I will post something here if ever I recieve an email at this address.
Thanks for the replys…
Heembo