The Story of "Nadine"

Guinnessy writes: "We've all accidentally typed in a wrong email address sooner or later. But can it all go horribly wrong? On http://www.spamresource.com there is the story of Nadine, an account of what happened after an Internet user accidentally gave a wrong email address when she visited a web page and signed up for a sweepstakes. Live in fear...."

Comments

Typoing your email address can be a drag

[PEN15]

Several years ago, I made a typo in my email address when I was updating the contact info for a domain name. Without double-checking I sent the confirmation back to InterNIC. It wasn't till the next day that I realized the mistake. In order to get things back under control, I actually had to register the typoed version of my domain name, so that I could receive InterNIC's mail there.

It's the kind of expensive mistake you only make once! :)

I kept the typo'd domain for esoteric value, and yes, I now get plenty of spam there. Some things never change.

Prevention measures

[yoyoyo]

This sort of thing could be avoided if companies used confirmed opt-in. That is, when you enter your email address they send an email address to that account with a unique url in it. They only email you their newsletters if you you click the link.

That also prevents your email address from being maliciously signed up to these sorts of lists, so it's the sort of thing every reputable mailing list should do.

Of course, no spammer is going to bother with confirmed opt-in, so we need to go after ISPs that allow these non-confirmed lists to remain on their net-space.

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