I can't believe he hacks into your db, mail everyone and then kindly asks you to remove this thread? lmao... people.
Pretty much everyone who has said they've gotten the mail has a public portfolio link in their sig, and most likely a public email address for interested parties to contact them.
It's a common misconception on the Internet that publicly visible emails (data) can be harvested in the way this guy is doing. It's technically an 'offense' as part of the CAN-SPAM Acts as well various "Data Protection" acts. You simply cannot scrape data just because you can see it. This stuff is actually a *massive* can of worms because it's what commercial scrapers do, they 'scrape' (gather) data and use that to sell services and/or tout for business, both this guy and those commerical outfits use the same line of thinking.
Like I said, it's a spambot. It pulls email addresses from websites, throws them in their mailing list, and sends off the generic email to you trying to get you to pay them. As far as I could tell, it's based somewhere in Egypt as well. At any rate, the guy is just trying to scam you, don't waste your time.
Y'know, someone said Belias earlier, now I'm starting to believe it..
Pretty much everyone who has said they've gotten the mail has a public portfolio link in their sig, and most likely a public email address for interested parties to contact them.
And? That doesn't give him the right to run a script throughout forums and sniff everyone's e-mail, even if one has decided to make his e-mail public.
Also, the CP option: "You can allow other members to send you email messages." has always been turned off, on my account at least.
I did have a MSN e-mail address on my profile tho, that happens to be the same as my personal e-mail address, so maybe that's how he managed to sniff all this info.
Legality I think this is all in a grey area. Google does this though his method is more filtered, downsides of the interwebz
That's the thing, it's not 'grey' at all. The legislation that's in places is quite clear about what constitutes 'spam' (and he's doing it). The problem, or 'grey' bit, is how you go after these people (there are ways to do that which don't necessitate the use of a lawyer or doing anything remotely illegal).
The difference with Google and other search engines is that whilst they may 'collect' data to spit out in search results, they don't then do anything with it, i.e. they don't use that data to then spam people. (the caveat here would be if you were using any of their - Google et-al - services, in doing that you grant them license to do whatever they want).
Funny enough I got a bat named Grey Area, which I will introduce to whoever is sending out that spam. (or any spam for that matter, REALLY hate that kind of people)
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Pretty much everyone who has said they've gotten the mail has a public portfolio link in their sig, and most likely a public email address for interested parties to contact them.
Y'know, someone said Belias earlier, now I'm starting to believe it..
And? That doesn't give him the right to run a script throughout forums and sniff everyone's e-mail, even if one has decided to make his e-mail public.
Also, the CP option: "You can allow other members to send you email messages." has always been turned off, on my account at least.
I did have a MSN e-mail address on my profile tho, that happens to be the same as my personal e-mail address, so maybe that's how he managed to sniff all this info.
I also want to mention I google searched his email and came to this thread so it's a good thing it is here.
Legality I think this is all in a grey area. Google does this though his method is more filtered, downsides of the interwebz
The difference with Google and other search engines is that whilst they may 'collect' data to spit out in search results, they don't then do anything with it, i.e. they don't use that data to then spam people. (the caveat here would be if you were using any of their - Google et-al - services, in doing that you grant them license to do whatever they want).