>(1) Am I just being paranoid here? No. You are 100% correct as to the purpose to that image link.
>(2) If not, would the act of E-mailer retrieving my e-mail from AOL be >enough to generate the hit, even though E-mailer cannot display images? No. Emailer doesn't render HTML, so that URL is never resolved by Emailer. >(3) If the answer to (2) is "yes," would it be any different if the mail >were being retrieved from another ISP/e-mail provider, such as my local >broadband provider, .mac or another service? If you were to use a client that rendered HTML, then the act of reading the email (even if you just display it in a preview pane) will cause that URL to be hit and register you as a valid email address. The act of downloading the email does NOT cause that URL to be hit. Only rendering the HTML will cause that. So you are safe to download and throw it out all you want. You are NOT safe to look at it in anything that renders HTML (which means any web browser, or most email clients). Emailer is your safest route with these as Emailer will NOT render the HTML, and thus not reveal to the spammer that you are in fact getting and seeing these emails. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
