On Sun, 16 Mar 2003 17:04:52 -0500, Samuel W. Heywood wrote:
> Did you ever wonder why everybody who signs up for a hotmail or a > yahoo account gets dumped on with tons of spam? Could it be that > hotmail and yahoo sell email addresses to spammers? Highly doubtful. This would be against the expressed policies of both Hotmail and Yahoo. You are making rash and unwarranted assumptions. Spammers use free accounts to send mail for convenience mostly. They can set up an account, use it for a few hours and then move on. The more public and spread around your email address is, the more spam you will get. It's as simple as that. There isn't any big conspiracy involving big commercial orgainizations like Hotmail and Yahoo. If you have an account with them it's just easy to harvest your address, that's all. And I think your assumptions about pornography are also mistaken. I hardly ever get spam promoting porn sites. Mostly it's just Nigerian generals and drug offers. I used to get the free cable tv device offer all the time, but that seems to have disappeared. Once you get on a certain kind of spam list as being possibly interested in certain kinds of offers then you will get lots of mail that's very much the same kind of thing. It's somewhat targeted that way. Sam Ewalt Croswell, Michigan, USA -- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
