SPAM - A Different Kind of Identity Theft?
bmooney28 asks: "After maintaining a single permanent email address through 8
years and five ISP's (via a forwarding service), I lost it all in a day. My first sign of trouble came when I found a message undeliverable email in my inbox containing hundreds of failed email addresses. Apparently, my email address had been pasted as the return address in a mass mailing similar to this
one sent to hundreds of random recipients. This process repeated a few times over the next day or so, effectively blacklisting my email address on various master lists and adding my address to thousands of random address books
(virus magnets). In the past, I have had a great deal of luck fighting off SPAM and other unwanted email via throwaway
email addresses and preemptive email filtering.
Now, the email address that I use to communicate with friends, former students,
and coworkers around the world is useless. Have any of you ever found yourself in a similar situation? Are there any legal steps that I could
take against this company?"
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma