No, we did not sell/rent emails here. And we have contacted this client. I suspect this will stop. Let me know if not.
I speak to most of these folks personally, and it's usually about 50-50 between folks who understand it's a crappy way to market and do it anyway and folks who don't realize the impression it gives and change their ways once things are explained. With these guys, I'm betting on the latter.
I won't stop posting my e-mail address in messages for people who need templates, help or direction just because some people abuse it. I do use a public e-mail address and I have a private one.
I will not let a spammer take away the benefits of this forum, which includes the ability to provide something to someone in need.
I will however, not validate their sneakiness by utilizing the offending business.
I never use companies that 'steal' or 'buy' (not implying or suggesting that this site sells our addresses... we know better) my email address from somewhere else.
I also use a hotmail account for additional safety regarding my email. I have, once or twice, posted my actual email, but not in some time.
I also reply to those emails and demand to know where they got my address. Sometimes I get an apology, sometimes I get nothing. But I never get spam from them again!
I was actually going to email Tim about this, because I got the same thing, and it had to be from this site somehow. Plus they run banner ads on this site. So, I was wondering if PTO Today had actually sold the list from here or NPN members or something. I don't think they do that, but I'm pretty careful about not putting my email address anywhere in my messages (although I easily could have slipped up at one point). And even when we could email each other as registered users, I kept my address hidden to all but other registered users.
To Block Tracking cookies- Not sure if any of you know this but some spam e-mails (including this one from School Wishes) attaches a cookie to the e-mail so that when you read the e-mail, they know it.
I have it set up to prompt me for cookies. In that way, I can see who and how they are trying to track me.
To set it up to block a cookie-
Internet Explorer- Click tools, then click internet options
Next click the tab- privacy. Under settings click the advanced tab
Click override automatic cookie handling, then under third party cookies, mark prompt.
When a cookie tries to download, you will get a pop up screen that asks what you want to do with the cookie. You can block it once or block all cookies from that site (places like gator, double-click etc) or accept the cookie once or always. Sometimes a cookie is necessary for that website and if you always block it, that site may not work. If you run across this after you block the cookie, you can go back into your privacy settings and remove all blocked sites under sites- I had to do this to sign into yahoo but that is the only site that has blocked me once I stopped the cookie.
It's also interesting to see which e-mails contain cookies this way.
Ditto, I blocked them. I was curious and visited the website, but I didn't link to it from the email. (I guess they can track you that way)It was interesting, but I will have nothing to do with someone who in reality "stole" our email addresses for their own gain.
