Is Your Email Address Public Data?

quackking writes "Are email addresses public records, accessible under public open-access laws in America? Up in Maine they are fighting about just this issue ..."

Comments

To put it in perspective

[dacarr]

Your email address is public much as your snail address is public. It is a means to deliver something to a specific location.

And it is as public as you, the holder of said address, make it. If you want people to contact you, you stick it in a website. If you don't want people contacting you, you don't use it anywhere, just keep it out of the public eye.

Re:To put it in perspective

[Samrobb]

Your email address is public much as your snail address is public.

I think it's more like your phone number. Your physical address is a matter of public record because it's a matter of public interest - there are numerous government agencies (postal service, law enforcement, fire stations, EMT) that need to know your phycial address in order to function properly.

It isn't nearly as important that your phone number be a matter of public record, and so it is possible to request an unlisted phone number. Likewise, I think you should be able to have a reasonable expecation of privacy for your email address, and the government should honor this expectation by assuming that you do not want your address / phone number / fax number / pager number / cell phone number / email address / other personal information distributed unless you've given them explicit permission to do so.

No - in a way.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just make up a new phone number. You can't just make up a new address.

You can do that with e-mail addresses. Be it making a new hotspam, err, hotmail address, or be it through owning your own domain name and thus having a virtually unlimited amount of addresses at your disposal.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. If you post your e-mail address to a public forum, it's no longer private. If you send it to some company that requires it and thus, you end up getting spammed, tough luck.

E-mail addresses are inherently private - the fact that people give them out far too easily isn't the fault of e-mail, and it doesn't need any legislation keeping/preventing addresses from being 'public'.

In short, if you want to keep your e-mail address private, no one's going to stop you.

(Just be sure that your 'friends' take you seriously when you point out that they will receive .50 cal pieces of lead in various parts of their bodies if they cause your address to receive spam.)

Unreasonable effort

[bluGill]

Sure, if I go through unreasonabl effort I have a chance of keeping my email address spam free. I need to find someone willing to accept my private domain, as DNS records are public. It can be their domain, but they have to allow me to set up as many email addresses as I want, and not tell anyone what they are. Then I need to be careful who gets that address.

Problem is I can't be careful who gets my email address. I'm looking for a job, and MOST potential employeers email me first when they are interested. If I don't respond they are likely to move on, in this ecconomy they can afford to accept someone else. (Note, see the other /. story about ID theft from job listings for the other side of this)

For that matter I want my email public and some strangers to email me. I don't know who they are, but there might be someone with information I need, or who needs information I have, and email is the best way to communicate. If I need the information I can't expect them to go through extra effort to reach me, if email bounces they won't try again. If they need my information they will try harder, but if my email address isn't public then they will have to give up.