Spam, Spam, Spam, Spammity, Spam
Do you ever feel a little suspicious when sites ask for your email address? Yes, their free newsletter looks like it will give you crucial, life-changing, awe-inspiring information that you’ll never find anywhere else. Their downloadable program will make your life slicker than having baggies on your feet during an ice storm. Their privacy statement says that they won’t sell your address to any one who is handling an estate in a foreign country and needs to return a million dollars to you. Worse still, is that another site whom you would trust with your bank account and your first born, highly recommends signing up for that newsletter or downloading that program.
So I rarely sign up, load down, or give out my email address. Yet, somehow, somewhere, some evil spammer got a hold of my address and lately my inbox quickly fills each day with college offers, book deals, and weight loss promises. So which site violated my trust and my inbox?
Yesterday, I took action. I suspended my distrust and went to a disposable email service site recommended by CNET called sneakemail.com and set up an account. Now if I need to enter an email address, I go to sneakemail, have them generate a unique address that I can use to track where the spam is coming from. Any mail with that address will first go to sneakemail who will then forward it to my real address. This way, I can know who sold my good name. While this won’t help me with my current load of spammers, it will help in the future so I can then pass the word about which sites you should avoid.
UPDATE: sneakemail.com has become a pay-to-use service. As a result, I’ve started using Gishpuppy with excellent results. In fact, I’ve found much easier to use than sneakemail.
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