# Why do I get spam and my dad doesn't? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 21, 2002, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035 "2002-09-21T22:03:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hayduke\_Lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Hayduke\_Lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hayduke_Lives)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/1 "2002-09-21T22:03:02Z")
I have a HotMail E-mail account, my dad has a HotMail account. The old man uses his account for everything, business and personal. He hands out his e-mail address to everyone, including on sites while surfing the web. I only use my account to communicate with a small circle of friends. Other than them, I never gave my e-mail address out to anyone. My dad has his spam filter set on medium, mine is set on high. My dad get’s about 3 spams a week! I get about 12 per day!!! What gives? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/2 "2002-09-21T22:16:52Z")
Are you bragging or complaining? 😃 The obvious answer is that at some point in your Internet/e-mail career, whether you knew about it or not, your e-mail address happened to get harvested and put on some particularly popular spam e-mail address list, and it’s just going around and around the spam e-mail address list circuit. The spam purveyors buy and sell the lists of addresses–you did know that, yes? no, actually the obvious answer is, of course, that YOUR friends are the ones who keep putting you on the “see naked J-Lo perform with a horse penis” mailing list, and that your dad doesn’t have any friends like that maybe you should introduce him around ---
**Author:** ![NotMrKnowItAll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6bbea6/32.png) [@NotMrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotMrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/3 "2002-09-21T22:24:00Z")
I’ll top you, I have a hotmail account I use solely for IM (client required this), I get spammed like crazy. I chose a sort of random collection of ten letters and numbers to boot! I have no idea how they got it. I assume this email is not the hay…com that is in your profile. Maybe you picked up an email that was used previously? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/4 "2002-09-21T22:52:15Z")
**Hayduke** —it’s all the porn. I mean, it **is** all the **porn**. Really, it’s all the **porn**. That you surf to. And your Dad doesn’t. Could it be all your porn? Could it be all your lewd, disgusting, filthy P_O_R\*N?!? Or…maybe it’s just the porn. 😉😃 ---
**Author:** ![im2evil4u](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5ac83/32.png) [@im2evil4u](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/im2evil4u)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/5 "2002-09-21T23:09:56Z")
Each morning at 10:00 I check my hotmail. Each morning I delete at least 260 spam emails. I get 10 per hour on average. I could set the account up to automatically delete these, but then I’d have no reason to check my email. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/6 "2002-09-21T23:12:35Z")
260? Good grief. One junk email every month is about as bad as it gets for me. [Study of common ways you can get spam](http://home.cnet.com/software/0-3227888-8-6602372-1.html?tag=st.cn.sr1.ssr.sw_spam). ---
**Author:** ![Hayduke\_Lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Hayduke\_Lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hayduke_Lives)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/7 "2002-09-21T23:12:53Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \* > **Hayduke** —it’s all the porn. > I mean, it **is** all the **porn**. > Really, it’s all the **porn**. That you surf to. And your Dad doesn’t.COLOR=orangered]Could it be all your porn? > Could it be all your lewd, disgusting, filthy POR_N?!? [/COLOR] > Or…maybe it’s just the porn. 😉😃 \*\* But I don’t give my e-mail address out at porn sites. And most important, the General and I use the same computer! Why wouldn’t me going on porn sites affect his e-mail too? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/8 "2002-09-21T23:19:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hayduke Lives!! \* > \*\* > But I don’t give my e-mail address out at porn sites. > > And most important, the General and I use the same computer! > Why wouldn’t me going on porn sites affect his e-mail too? \*\* [list=a] [li]I have heard that it is possible for some sites to harvest information about your computer just by your visiting/downloading stuff from the site.[/li][li]Porn sites are notorious for spyware.[/li][li]You & your old man have different e-mail addresses? Different accounts to access the Internet?[/li][/list=a] ---
**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/9 "2002-09-21T23:48:47Z")
Interesting anecdote. Two days ago I registered my mom for a hotmail account so we could stop sharing an E-mail address. I checked the E-mail TEN MINUTES AFTER REGISTERING IT, and there were 3 spams: One for penis enlargement pills, one for lesbian porn, and one for animal porn. WTF? I can only assume that hotmail must automatically sell your address to a number of lists. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/10 "2002-09-22T00:06:36Z")
A lot of these spammers “guess” at your email address. They’ll just send spam to: [aajones@hotmail.com](mailto:aajones@hotmail.com), [abjones@hotmail.com](mailto:abjones@hotmail.com) … [zzjones@hotmail.com](mailto:zzjones@hotmail.com) or [flower1@hotmail.com](mailto:flower1@hotmail.com), [flower2@hotmail.com](mailto:flower2@hotmail.com) … [flower99999@hotmail.com](mailto:flower99999@hotmail.com). They know that some percantage of them will get through. Perhaps your hotmail account name is easier to guess. Haj ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/11 "2002-09-22T00:14:13Z")
A lot of these spammers “guess” at your email address. They’ll just send spam to: [aajones@hotmail.com](mailto:aajones@hotmail.com), [abjones@hotmail.com](mailto:abjones@hotmail.com) … [zzjones@hotmail.com](mailto:zzjones@hotmail.com) or [flower1@hotmail.com](mailto:flower1@hotmail.com), [flower2@hotmail.com](mailto:flower2@hotmail.com) … [flower99999@hotmail.com](mailto:flower99999@hotmail.com). They know that some percantage of them will get through. Perhaps your hotmail account name is easier to guess. Haj ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-spam-and-my-dad-doesnt/129035/12 "2002-09-22T00:23:45Z")
Without knowing your fathers email addy it’s hard to compare. The email addy in your profile turns up on a google, which means that any of the “spiders” (automated programs that crawl the web looking for certain patterns, for example x@x.x) will grab it, and store it. That is one major cause. Again assuming we are talking about the same address, yours is comprised of words freely available in a dictionary, these lads and lassies will as mentioned above mail to everything from meyou@ to elephantchocolate@ etc. It takes them no effort so why not. They then keep a list of the ones that don’t “bounce” (get returned as non-existant) and sell it on. Once you are on one spam list the rot has started.