Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Spammers have been doing this for years. I started getting junk faxes at my office number even though I never give that number out to anybody (except to domain registrars, who can theoretically take your domain away if you don't give them valid contact info). That will teach me to follow the rules.

I've discovered that my registrar, who I use because they are cheap ('bout $8 a domain/year) offers a "privacy" option for another $9 a year. If you opt for that service, the registrant is listed as a proxy ("Domains by Proxy"), but you retain control of the domain.

It's tempting. I get a metric buttload of spam at the address listed in my former domain registration, and zero real email.

I don't work for either of these firms, honest. I just use one of 'em, and find the other tempting.

I constantly get email spam, but never mail/fax spam (yet). Although, I do live in Australia :)

Thank goodness.

There are actually programs out there that will scour the internet pulling every single email address it can possible get its hands on. This includes whois information from the Registrars. I figure if they can pull the email address they probably would not have a problem pulling an actual mailing address.

Wonderful world we live in!

I never get spammed or googled. Man, to be young again!

Why not? This is classic direct marketing. Buy a list that fits your target audience criteria and spend a boatload of money in postage/printing costs to reach them in a socially acceptable, snail-mail way. Companies like his registrar are smart enough to not sell email addresses, but looks like they're still cashing in on offline contact info. Wonder how Google's DM response rate compares with online advertising?

It's not google. It's just spammer's spam bots which are "harvesting" those e-mail addresses and other data. That's sad, but what can we do...
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Sandra @ Pussy Cats

interesting