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I did similar things for many years, but at the end of the day I found that I was just adding friction for myself and not getting any real benefit. Yeah, I can

I did similar things for many years, but at the end of the day I found that I was just adding friction for myself and not getting any real benefit. Yeah, I can see who has sold (or inadvertently leaked) my information, but then what? Don't do business with them again? Fine, but it's too late. And so many companies have problems like this that if you refuse to do business with any of them, you're going to find yourself very limited. In a broader sense, as I learned to grow out of my 1990s-era rage about spam, I've found that my online life has gotten a lot less stressful. No, I still do not like commercial email in my inbox. But constantly being angry about it and trying to fight it did not result in me getting any less of it. All it did was made me a bitter person. Something something accept the things I cannot change...

wrboyce 4y ago
> Don't do business with them again? Fine, but it's too late. Well no, not if you have assigned them a unique address. That is the whole point of the exercise, no? Stop doing business with them _and_ block their unique address.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  "Stop doing business with them" is not always a feasible option, or the cost is very high (more than many are willing to pay); that's the problem.
johnklos 4y ago
Honestly, I can't help but be suspicious about postings like this because they are way too common. They introduce no real new information and only serve to offer, "it's too much work, so just accept it". It's completely disingenuous to say that you can't do anything with the information gained from learning who is selling, sharing or otherwise allowing email address lists to be compromised. It's almost maliciously disingenuous. You can do infinitely more with this information than you can about any other kind of spam: 1) you can demand to know how and why your address was shared with third parties 2) you can insist on disclosure, particularly if you live in a state or country that mandates it, for any breach they may blame it on 3) if they ignore you, you can publicly shame them on social media and inform others 4) most importantly, you can STOP accepting email at that unique address, and stop any future spam. I really wonder these naysayers want. They clearly want the rest of us to not expend the tiniest bit of energy to maintain any agency in the control of our own email, but why? I really wish I knew. They're not helping people by telling them to save - what? - minutes of time per month? I'm so curious.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  > They clearly want the rest of us to not expend the tiniest bit of energy to maintain any agency in the control of our own email, but why? No one is telling you what to do, they're just saying that they didn't find it valuable for them personally. My experiences are similar. You can do whatever you want with your email (...except send me spam...)
- Eji1700 4y ago
  So on the US side of things (EU is better): You're going to need a hell of a lot of freetime to do all that. I think it's a fucking travesty how quickly society rolled over on privacy and tracking because a bunch of short sighted people think its ok for companies to buy and sell your data, but it's such a common practice, and it's not like ANY of the above things are going to change shit. To be blunt: 1) This going to be AFTER a daisy chain of emails/calls/both to get to ANYONE who feels like giving you an answer, and it's basically going to boil down to "oh its part of the TOS. Sue us or fuck off". The TOS is likely bullshit, but I hope you've got millions to prove it. 2) Again, even getting to this point takes a dizzying amount of time, and for what? To know they're greedy fucks selling your data to the highest bidder? You knew that the moment you got spam. 3) Uh huh. The kind of people who care already know. My experience with informing others about this has mostly been "so what". I spent waaay to long convincing people who HATE the current administration (from literally either side) that maybe it's not so great that amazon/facebook/etc knows damn near every single thing about them if they're one government request away from having it the hands of the people they despise. It's preaching to the choir at best. 4) Or you can just give out a junk account to start with and let them send as much spam as they want. If you really want to actually hurt them you should probably write a small script to hit a vpn, then open the email, then delete it (as clickthrough metrics are what they're looking at). As for what "naysayers" want, well i can only speak for myself, and it's "real legal options". I think a lot of this is "security theater" with the amount of fingerprinting and other nonsense going on. You can spend all day trying to be the invisible man on the net and still have MORE than enough known about you because a friend or family member can't be bothered to care.
  - johnklos 4y ago
ebrewste 4y ago
If you are committed to using the leaker, change your email for them from company@myserver.com to company2@myserver.com and block company@myserver.com. It gets the benefit of spam blocking and leaker traceability in one easy step.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wrboyce 4y ago

> Don't do business with them again? Fine, but it's too late. Well no, not if you have assigned them a unique address. That is the whole point of the exercise, no? Stop doing business with them _and_ block their unique address.

Beltalowda 4y ago
"Stop doing business with them" is not always a feasible option, or the cost is very high (more than many are willing to pay); that's the problem.

johnklos 4y ago

Honestly, I can't help but be suspicious about postings like this because they are way too common. They introduce no real new information and only serve to offer, "it's too much work, so just accept it". It's completely disingenuous to say that you can't do anything with the information gained from learning who is selling, sharing or otherwise allowing email address lists to be compromised. It's almost maliciously disingenuous. You can do infinitely more with this information than you can about any other kind of spam: 1) you can demand to know how and why your address was shared with third parties 2) you can insist on disclosure, particularly if you live in a state or country that mandates it, for any breach they may blame it on 3) if they ignore you, you can publicly shame them on social media and inform others 4) most importantly, you can STOP accepting email at that unique address, and stop any future spam. I really wonder these naysayers want. They clearly want the rest of us to not expend the tiniest bit of energy to maintain any agency in the control of our own email, but why? I really wish I knew. They're not helping people by telling them to save - what? - minutes of time per month? I'm so curious.

Beltalowda 4y ago
> They clearly want the rest of us to not expend the tiniest bit of energy to maintain any agency in the control of our own email, but why? No one is telling you what to do, they're just saying that they didn't find it valuable for them personally. My experiences are similar. You can do whatever you want with your email (...except send me spam...)
Eji1700 4y ago
So on the US side of things (EU is better): You're going to need a hell of a lot of freetime to do all that. I think it's a fucking travesty how quickly society rolled over on privacy and tracking because a bunch of short sighted people think its ok for companies to buy and sell your data, but it's such a common practice, and it's not like ANY of the above things are going to change shit. To be blunt: 1) This going to be AFTER a daisy chain of emails/calls/both to get to ANYONE who feels like giving you an answer, and it's basically going to boil down to "oh its part of the TOS. Sue us or fuck off". The TOS is likely bullshit, but I hope you've got millions to prove it. 2) Again, even getting to this point takes a dizzying amount of time, and for what? To know they're greedy fucks selling your data to the highest bidder? You knew that the moment you got spam. 3) Uh huh. The kind of people who care already know. My experience with informing others about this has mostly been "so what". I spent waaay to long convincing people who HATE the current administration (from literally either side) that maybe it's not so great that amazon/facebook/etc knows damn near every single thing about them if they're one government request away from having it the hands of the people they despise. It's preaching to the choir at best. 4) Or you can just give out a junk account to start with and let them send as much spam as they want. If you really want to actually hurt them you should probably write a small script to hit a vpn, then open the email, then delete it (as clickthrough metrics are what they're looking at). As for what "naysayers" want, well i can only speak for myself, and it's "real legal options". I think a lot of this is "security theater" with the amount of fingerprinting and other nonsense going on. You can spend all day trying to be the invisible man on the net and still have MORE than enough known about you because a friend or family member can't be bothered to care.
- johnklos 4y ago

ebrewste 4y ago

If you are committed to using the leaker, change your email for them from company@myserver.com to company2@myserver.com and block company@myserver.com. It gets the benefit of spam blocking and leaker traceability in one easy step.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]