Official Luthiers Forum!

hi there,

i just recieved an offer from a tonewood website which i have only visited once, and have certainly never given my email address to. i guess they must have got my address from my profile,

this really kind of annoys me, as this company is not an OLF sponsor, and i did not ask for this spam offer,

maybe i am just being grumpy (sorry mario!) but i wondered if anyone else feels the same way??

paddy

Personally I don't mind as I like to know about suppliers, you never know when you might need something they offer, or though I do wonder what the guy who sends me 50 emails a day offering Viagra has heard,

This has happened to me twice. Both suppliers were offering ukulele specific sets....6 piece koa in soprano through bari sizes. I appreciate knowing that these folks are out there. I still look to the sponsors first...and have found some great new suppliers.

Most likely, his website's software logged your email address when you visited. My website's software will even tell me what site you arrived from and what site you went to when you left. That's probably where he got your address.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

[QUOTE=Michael McBroom] Most likely, his website's software logged your email address when you visited. My website's software will even tell me what site you arrived from and what site you went to when you left. That's probably where he got your address.

Best,

Michael
[/QUOTE]

What????? I am very curious... how are you picking up the email address?

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Nice one Hesh

I'm with you Paddy! I get enough junk e-mail and spam, I don't need anymore. What really annoys me is there is no option on the e-mails to opt out. I would be okay with it if I were given the choice to bail out if I didn't want the spam. I think the spammer is getting the e-mail addresses from here, which bothers me because they are abusing the OLF and circumventing the "no advertising" policy unless you are an OLF sponsor. They are willing to exploit the OLF to fish for customers, but not support it publicly.

Off my soapbox!

John

John, well said

Mike

Yeah, I just deleted it too...twice! I've unsubscribed several times from the list, but it just keeps on rolling in...

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

I'm with you guys. I don't like it. It's still spam to me, whether it's for something I might want or not. And, as John said, it's abuse of the OLF.

Michael, do you mean it logs the IP address? I'd be surprised if it were in fact the email address.

burbank38832.9551967593

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

hesh, that was great!!! I'm still laughin
Mike

I've gotten unsolicited stuff from people I've never heard of, but I very much suspect they harvested the addresses via some sort of bot/trawl; I got 'hit' on my valenteguitars.com account, which isn't publicized (content still lacking from site, mostly), and I'd never heard of them before.

By email address isn't anywhere accessible in my browser software, so it can't be harvested like that.

It may well be true that someone is coming to the OLF and looking up your address in your profile and copying that into their database. For sure.

But removing it won't necessarily remove the chance they will grab your address and spam you.

(BTW, I run an email marketing company... but we don't spam people).

Here is another way they can get it. They find your URL and enter it into a database of sites to scan and then pick up any email addresses they find at your site.

For instance if you have a contact us area that uses a link to pop an email box... presto... they have your email address. The Bots that Mattia mentioned can pick all of this up automatically.

And ... if you think your tricky and use a graphic in place of your email address.... it really doesn't help unless you hide your email address in the code.

...

and.... if your email address is on your domain name registration @ Network Solutions, Go Daddy, etc.... gotcha.

It is a really bad problem. We fight this kind of thing @ work constantly.

Brock Poling38833.3124884259

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Basically, antything @ valenteguitars gets forwarded to me, and that includes some spam. I can't recall if the email address is particularly bot-safe (I didn't do the design) on my site, but the spam filtering takes care of stuff anyway.

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
What????? I am very curious... how are you picking up the email address?

[/QUOTE]

Whoops, I was mistaken. It's actually been a long time since I've browsed through the tools my hosting service provides. In fact the last time I took a look at traffic to my site, it was a different domain with a different hosting service. Memory's playing tricks on me again. Yes, inbound IP addresses and URLs are logged, but that's all.

Sorry for the misstatement.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

I was receiving spam emails for the same source as well (along with the 30 per day cheap drugs and viagara vendors). Not any more though -- I thought initially it was coming from one of the vendors here.

Spamming and people accessing email addresses through the OLF is the reason I shudder anytime I see a member post a picture of their children.

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
and.... if your email address is on your domain name registration @ Network Solutions, Go Daddy, etc.... gotcha.

It is a really bad problem. We fight this kind of thing @ work constantly.

[/QUOTE]

I recently contacted my server,(Network solutions), for the same type of problem. I found that I could get a private listing of my domain info for a small fee.
Unfortunately, no one explained it at set up, and 7 years later, many "bots" have already picked up the info.

And, Hesh, my line doesn't seem to suggest a need for the 30-40 viagra "opportunities" I see daily...
or does it....?

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Paul Bordeaux
http://www.bordeauxinlay.com

[QUOTE=1bordeaux] I recently contacted my server,(Network solutions), for the same type of problem. I found that I could get a private listing of my domain info for a small fee.

Unfortunately, no one explained it at set up, and 7 years later, many "bots" have already picked up the info.
[/QUOTE]

Don't fret about it too much... 7 years ago that wasn't an option.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Paddy, i feel the same way as you, i don't know the guy, visited his website once without ordering anything and i received 2 offers in my e-mail and i find it very uncomfortable, if i ever want to buy some wood, i'm gonna have a hard time already to choose from all our great sponsor. Now by all means of respect, i'd like this person to stop sending me offers unless you become a sponsor here if you recognize yourself because it makes some of us uncomfortable.

Serge

Get incedimail, it is free and will allow you to block, bounce and collect all of your mail from various accounts...it is pretty cool. Here's the link incredimail

It's impossible to use an email address and simultaneously control possession of it.

The first time one of your friends or relatives sends you one of the cute "e" greeting cards — and they will, no matter how much noise you make about it — the cat's out of the bag and your email address will eventually get swapped around from one spammer to another.

There are some registration schemes whereby you can require someone to "register" with you through a third party before they can send you email, but these are entirely unsatisfactory as far as I'm concerned, especially if you're involved in any kind of e-commerce.

My solution is to use "throw-away" email addresses. This is an easy solution if you have your own domain and a web host for it. For example, the contact email address that appears on all of my web pages is info1@ecklunds.com. It's there for all the world to see. I know that within a year the flow of spam to this email address will become a problem. At that point I'll kill the mailbox and create a new one called info2@ecklunds.com.

This is also the same technique I use to boost security for my ebay activities. The only way to get my ebay email address is through an actual buy/sell transaction. I use the same address for Paypal payments, and I don't use it for anything else. Even so, this email eventually will end up on some spammer or phisher's list and it will be time to recycle the email address.

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D..

Dennis is right. Multiple email accounts are the way to go. Don't use challenge & response systems. You will miss out on a ton of legitimate mail and things you sign up for.Brock Poling38834.4209027778

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Some legitimate business that send "almost spam" excepted, if you reply to spam using the "click here to be removed from this list" you don't get removed, but confirm that your email is good. Spammers and wholesale address sellers can then get more money moving your email to the "confirmed" list.

For a long established, full time business, changing the contact email address is not an option or sound business practice. I often get emails from inactive clients I've not had contact with for a year or two. Changing email addresses prohibit ongoing business contact. "Projects" with clients can evolve over weeks and months and changing email addresses anywhere in these processes would be disastrous.

My worst spamming occurs if I advertise or list on the various wood sites like "Wood Web", "Wood Planet", etc.

I think all email direct contact has been eliminated on my website. All contact links go the secure contact form. Eliminates most tire kickers and bots can't fill the form out. Larry Davis38834.4700694444