Spammers

A while ago now, I began using disposable email addresses. The wonderful thing about these is that, as the name implies, they're disposable - but not only that, if you know what address you gave to whom, you can quickly work out just who is sending you spam.

Now, that alone is great. I'm happy with that. But I thought to myself, what would be even better, is if I knew who not to trust in the first place. So, here I'm going to compile a list of websites that I KNOW have sent me spam, based on the disposable email addresses that have received it. Unless otherwise noted, every domain listed is one to whom I've given a disposable email address, that has subsequently received spam.

I have done it in this manner since it tells you who is disclosing your email address to spammers, rather than just looking at the "from" address. Spammers often use a technique called "cloaking" - they make the email APPEAR to have come from someone it didn't. I have had the experience of being accused of sending spam, because the emails said they came from this domain. I was absolutely FURIOUS. But with a disposable email address, you will know EXACTLY where the spammers got your email from.

Below are different sites that offer disposable email address services. My personal favourite is Yahoo's service - it's free, and I can make notes as to who each address was for. For the record, I'm pretty sure that if you have a US-based Yahoo! address, you may have to pay for the extras. I'm in Australia, so I don't. You can choose international versions of Yahoo! when you sign up - so if you don't mind having a domain extension different from the US "yahoo.com", pick a country you fancy and you'll probably get the bonuses for free.

The ones that have a star in the left-hand column are those that I have personally tried and liked. Those that don't have a star, are services I have found, but haven't tried out myself. There are a lot of services of this nature out there - some you need to pay for; some you don't. I personally don't pay for anything I don't need to (which is another reason I'm such a fan of freeware - there are some great programmes out there that are completely, truly free). I'll add more at a later date, but for now the ones I've listed are very good. If you want to find more, just Google it.

	Mailinator	http://www.mailinator.com/
*	Gish Puppy	http://www.gishpuppy.com/
*	Spam Gourmet	http://www.spamgourmet.com/ This service is good in that you don't have to create an email address before you give it to someone - there's a simple format to follow, and you can give out an address on the spur of the moment. The bad thing is that disposable email addresses automatically expire, which means that if you DO want to keep receiving email from whomever, you have to create another address, or give them your primary address. (This is the case with a number of such services.)
*	Yahoo! Address Guard	http://antispam.yahoo.com/addressguard Yahoo!'s service is my personal favourite. I can keep records of who gets which address, and they never expire - I can destroy them individually when I choose to, but need not worry about losing contact with anyone. By using Yahoo!'s service, I can know just who it is, that's giving my address to spammers, since when I create the address, I can put a note with each disposable addy. I love it!

These are websites who were given specific, disposable email addresses by me. The email addresses given to them subsequently received spam. Since each disposable email address I create is ONLY for the one person or company, no one else could have given out my details.

Name of Site	URL and Comments

Change Your Life Challenge	http://www.changeyourlifechallenge.com/
Creative Homemaking	http://www.creativehomemaking.com/
Customize.org	http://www.customize.org/ This site didn't necessarily give out my email address; HOWEVER, they DO force your email address to be displayed when you join up, and that in turn makes it available to bots as well as people. Since they force this, they are listed here, as it is a violation of privacy.
Declutter Fast	http://www.declutterfast.com/
eMusic.com	http://www.emusic.com/
Fat Resistance Diet	www.myspace.com/fatresistancediet N.B.: MySpace is NOT responsible for this - the "Fat Resistance Diet" author is.
Get Organized Now!	http://www.getorganizednow.com/
Get PDF	http://www.get-pdf.com/
Lyn's Home Decor	http://www.lynnshomedecor.com/
Names Database	http://namesdatabase.com
UKI Solutions	http://www.ukisolutions.com/ This guy is actually an eBay seller of electronic books, whose ID is (who'd have guessed?) ukisolutions.