posted on March 5, 2001 05:20:42 PM
SO, have you been receiving a lot of spam with your Hotmail account? Microsoft is known for it's total disregard for your privacy (remember the GUID?) so I've always been very leery of their Hotmail account and have never used it. I know it's loaded with adware and some of the privacy Gurus believe it's also bugged so this news article comes as no big surprise to me:
"WASHINGTON –– Hotmail, the free e-mail service from Microsoft, is divulging subscribers' e-mail addresses, cities and states to a public Internet directory site that combines the information with telephone numbers and home addresses.
Hotmail customers are automatically added to Infospace's Internet White Pages directory unless they remove the check from a box in their registration form and "opt out," company officials said.
Critics say users may be putting themselves at risk of receiving junk e-mail, known as spam, because they overlook the check box. Once their information makes the directory, it is easily obtained by advertisers.
"Once your e-mail addresses get into the spammers' databases, you can't get it out again," said Internet activist Bennett Haselton, who made the discovery."
END QUOTE
posted on March 5, 2001 08:47:40 PM
Hello Susan. It's good to hear from you. Thanks for the two links - it looks like good old DoubleClick has found some new tricks. I just briefly scanned the articles but will study them more fully tomorrow after my little brain gets some rest.
Hi gboy. I sure hope folks don't give their real info out when signing up for Hotmail or just about anything on the net. I'm a firm believer of "throw away" email accounts. Garbage in and garbage out. I don't trust any of them!!
However, it doesn't matter what info was given when signing up for Hotmail because there's no way to have an email account and then hide it away. It kind of defeats the purpose. So, you're still going to receive SPAM in your inbox whether your real info is correct or not because Hotmail is either selling your email address to others or is just giving it away.
posted on March 6, 2001 03:28:51 AM
That's why you should LIE on all Internet signups unless you plan to actually buy something .... anyone trying to send junk to my hotmail account will end up calling a local adult bookstore and mailing to a vacant lot.
That said, I'm getting an ever-increasing spamalanche on the hotmail account
posted on March 6, 2001 07:07:40 AM
Well, son of a gun, I found the little box and indeed it was checked to be listed in the "directory"! UGH! No wonder I was receiving SO much spam, and really pornographic stuff in a lot of cases.
EVERYONE should check to see if the box is checked and UNCHECK it.
Go into your hotmail account, click on "options", then "personal"; the box is near the bottom and says:
Directories: Please list me in the Hotmail Members Directory.
This is definately an opt-out thing as I would never have checked the box (not on purpose, anyway!).
Also, I changed my info to false info - I hate lying but I hate my privacy invaded more. I suggest the everyone do the same.
posted on March 6, 2001 08:41:01 AM
Thank you so much for the HEADS UP on the Hotmail thing. I checked my account also and sure enough that little box was checked. It is nice to know that after I have worked 8 hours at my office, come home and taken care of my 3 kids, listed a couple dozen auctions and visited with my husband before I am ready to drop from exhaustion that Hotmail belives I have nothing better to do than delete and block sender junk emails! Yeah right!
Thanks Again!
posted on March 6, 2001 09:03:25 AM
Thank you for the information!!
I just couldn't believe all the junk
mail and the SMUT I was getting in my
inbox!!!
Never thought to check that out..
Sue
posted on March 6, 2001 09:04:34 AM
Thanks from me also.
I just went into my account and my husband's account and both boxes for the directory were checked off. Interesting because neither one of us did that.
But what was also interesting was that our names had been changed in our personals and our user names split up as first and last names. We didn't do that either. Now he has a really weird name which is kind of funny.
I get all the porno stuff in my account and he has never had any of it.
posted on March 6, 2001 09:09:12 AM
Interesting observation:
I have 2 Hotmail accounts; the first one was opened in late 1998, and is what I call my 'personal' account - (only a 1/2 dozen or so people have the address, and I rarely send on it); the second account was opened in mid-1999, and is used for eBay (most of my personal is also received/sent from this one because everyone knows I check it more often).
I just looked at both of them, and the little box was checked on both (was...not any more!).
I have never received any junk mail on the personal account; I am deluged with crappy junk (including porno) on the eBay account.
posted on March 6, 2001 09:13:06 AM
Thanks Blanche!
I just passed this info on to my daughter who has a hotmail account at college. She told me all her personal info is bogus, but that she does receive a lot of porno spam.
posted on March 6, 2001 09:22:18 AM
Glad to see I'm not the only one that was being deluged with porn mail! And all this time I thought it was because I had pissed someone off along the way...
posted on March 6, 2001 09:27:36 AM
Well, here's another twist:
I set someone else an account up with Hotmail about a year ago; he only uses/checks it sporadically.
When I opened it just now, he had received 65 new pieces of SPAM in the last week or so. After clearing them out, I went into "options", and guess what?....his box wasn't checked!!!!
BTW, this account has never been used except among family.
posted on March 6, 2001 09:29:28 AM
Hi debbielennon,
The porn crap started just hours after I openend the account.
It is very strange that an old account. like gc2's personal account, is not inundated with the stuff, but newer accounts are.
It seems that the e-mails are not harvested from the site (or old accounts would be picked up) but are somehow being harvested by spammers when they are created. Some type of hacking s/w working in the account creation process? Makes ya wonder!
Well, hmmm... gc2's last post may have thrown that theory away! SOMEONE is hacking into MS to get these email addy's!
[ edited by oxford on Mar 6, 2001 09:32 AM ]
posted on March 6, 2001 10:12:11 AM
Everyone should check their email accounts. I KNOW I removed check, because I never sign up for anything like that. Sure enough. Check was there. Also birthdate and occupation were missing, that I had to put back in. They were there before. RE-CHECK YOUR HOTMAIL ACCOUNT !!!!!!
posted on March 6, 2001 10:28:09 AM
Hello everyone. I'm glad you unchecked the opt out box. The problem is that once you're on a spammer's list it's almost impossible to get off. It's just a viscous circle because the spammers who already have your email address will pass it on to others, and ON and ON and ON. What really ticks me off is the fact that the default settings are set for opt in instead of opt out and the opt out section is usually hidden away on some back page. That's true for just about any form on the internet. EBay's settings are the same way. I just signed up for a new user ID using a new email addy tied to the personal info of my main account and within 2 hours I received spam from eBay. All of my notification preference settings were set to "yes" which basically means I want to receive all of the spam you can dig up!!
The only sure way to get off of the spammer's list is to dump your current account and start another one but this time be sure to remember to remove the check from the box. I know this isn't a convenient solution for some folks but if you're getting tons of spam I'm afraid it's the only solution.
I find it totally ironic that Hotmail provides a spam filter and at the same time is the main source of the spam. I'd be almost willing to bet that the spam the filter misses is from the very companies that received your personal info from Hotmail in the first place. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. LOL I also love the comment that was made in defense of this practice by Sarah Lefko, the product manager for MSN:
QUOTE
"We're clearly stating what this is," Lefko said. "It's a consumer benefit."
END QUOTE
A consumer benefit? My God, I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.
I'm of the opinion that privacy statements in general are absolutely not worth the bandwidth that they're typed on and for this reason I advocate using throw-away accounts with FALSE info on every one except your main business account and be very diligent in trying to keep that one private.
Here's a quote from the above article concerning Hotmail's Privacy Policy:
QUOTE
"Hotmail's privacy policy states that Microsoft will not "sell, lease or rent" users' e-mail addresses. Lefko declined comment on Microsoft's business relationship with Infospace, or whether there was money involved in the deal."
END QUOTE
Folks, Microsoft is getting paid to invade your privacy and divulge your personal info which is a clear violation of their privacy statement and MSN is even worse with their barrage of web bugs. They can try to talk their way around it all they want but if it WALKS LIKE A DUCK, IT's A DUCK!! I have to wonder just how much money is enough for Bill Gates.
outoftheblue, I agree that deleting spam is an effective way of removing it but I'm trying to fight for MY privacy rights and stop the spammers from sending it to me in the first place. Also, if you open these emails before you delete them you are definitely at risk because many of the direct marketers embed web bugs in the email text which are then installed on your hard drive. But, that's another story which deserves a topic if it's own.
posted on March 6, 2001 10:47:39 AM
Interesting... I just checked my Hotmail account, and found that box not checked, but as I got to looking around, I found something else.
I took a look at the settings for the Inbox Protector, which is supposed to help manage spam. Here is what I found:
**********
Typical:
Incoming e-mail will be directed to your Inbox if:
Your e-mail address appears on the "To:" or "Cc:" line.
The sender's address appears in your Hotmail Address Book.
It is from a user in the hotmail.com or msn.com domain. All of these users have agreed not to send unsolicited bulk e-mail as a condition of maintaining an account with these services.
It is a Hotmail WebCourier or Special Offers Subscription, Hotmail Member Letter, or is from Microsoft, MSN, or a Microsoft Passport partner site.
**********
Note the bolded section:
It is from a user in the hotmail.com or msn.com domain. All of these users have agreed not to send unsolicited bulk e-mail as a condition of maintaining an account with these services.
What a joke- these users have agreed not to send unsolicited bulk e-mail?!? I rarely find messages sorted into the Bulk Mail folder by the "Inbox Protector". The only spam I seem to get seems to come from [email protected] addresses.
posted on March 6, 2001 10:52:53 AM
E-mail extensions are often faked - most of the spam I get with a @msn addresses come back from a spamcop analysis as originating from places like uu.net, rr.net, or some foreign (ending wth .cn or .au etc.) e-mail source.
posted on March 7, 2001 05:01:59 PM
I wanted to bring this thread back up for smw and I hope she has her email turned on so she can see it.
Good evening Susan, I finished studying the info in the links you provided and I do think this netscore service and their BUYING POWER INDEX is alarming, especially when teamed up with DoubleClick.
AND QUOTED from http://www.comscore.com/news/pr_doubleclick.htm
"netScore is based exclusively on comScore's massive database of over 1.5 million opt-in people, which with explicit consumer permission, continuously captures Web traffic and purchase transaction information from home, work, school and international computers ..."
I'm going to start another thread that may be of interest to you about two new programs to help combat web bugs and other "nasties".
