E-Mail Harvesting

[Cablemender]

Well, it appears the other sites are using the member profiles to harvest e-mail addresses from here. Got this today:

Cablemender ,

This is a message from WreckRman2 ( mailto:[e-mail] ) from the RC Hangout ( www.rchangout.com/forums/ ).

The message is as follows:

I thought you might be interested in joining me at the RC Hangout! Click here to check it out:

www.rchangout.com/index.php?referrerid=1

From,
WreckRman2


RC Hangout takes no responsibility for messages sent through its system.

Now, it's one thing to invite someone, but I think it's extremely poor to send a form letter with an address obviously hijacked from another site. I don't even know this guy, so what's he trying to do, pull a Marc here?

So, an open letter to WreckRman2:

Thank you for your nice form letter. I appreciate that you took the time to harvest it from another site I recently made it public on. Just so you know, I was aware of your site since it's inception, and have even gone there once or twice to look around. However you should also know that I don't like my e-mail address harvested for solicitation, especially from competing websites. If I wanted solicitations, I'd shut off my spam filter. Your site and e-mail are now blocked at my router/firewall.

Have a nice day.

Cablemender

[MadWags]

hehehehehe

[WreckRman2]

You made it available for public viewing and then you want to bitch when someone sends you something? If I was trying to pull a Marc Vigod act you would have gotten it 35 times a day... instead I sent ONE invitation to a few people here. Cry if you want too...

[WreckRman2]

Oh BTW... I would have simply replied to your email but since you said you blocked it and want to bring it all out into the public like your email address I'll just post my reply here as I have done.

[Cablemender]

I put it there in case anyone here had a question about a post. I DIDN'T put it there for other site owners to take advantage of it being there to use it as part of their mailing list to solicit business, or any other business to use it for solicitation.

And I have no problem with this being in the open. There's noting secretive about thinking someone is using a sleazy method to try and boost their site's membership - that's my opinion, and I've nothing to hide about it. And while we're here in the public eye, what's this about your site is NOT RESPONSIBLE for anything it sends? Does that mean you send things you don't want to be responsible for, or does it mean you have no clue what you send?

You can categorize it as crying all you want to, but it doesn't alter the fact that you deliberately used e-mails from one site to try and divert people to your own, something that I find disgusting, and low.

Just curious, what other sites do you do that at? I mean, you make it sound like it's no problem for anyone, so I'm sure you must be doing it all over, right?

[WreckRman2]

Do you really think I am the only person that will see your email there? I assure you it has already been spidered by more spammers than just one guy like myself sending you an invatation to a website that is at the very least something you are into as a hobby. Just wait until you get all the enlarge your emails... really is it my fault that you put your email there for everyone to see.

The Internet would be so much better off with people that actually understood how it works...

[Cablemender]

Yeah, when my ISP hired me it was a requirement I have no understanding of how the internet worked.

There's no point in discussing this with you, since you don't even get the point, which is the harvesting from another flying site, not that you sent it. Course, if someone was to do that to you one day, maybe even to the detriment of your site, I'm sure you'll have nothing to say about it, since the person doing it has no responsibility for it. Just because someone else does it, doesn't make it right.

[WreckRman2]

Actually the forum software I use protects the email addresses of the members at the website... perhaps you should request that of these forums here.

[GySgtUSMC]

WreckRMan²,

Is this really your name & phone number? ;D

David Smith
317-573-2486

You have it posted on your web site!

I'll bet the telemarketing folks would love to talk to you ... ;D ;D ;D

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

David, harvesting Emails is exactly what pissed me off with RCU to start with, not cool, no matter what the reasoning.

Why not just make a post with a link to your forum instead, you should know I don't have a problem with that....er...as long as its not daily and in every forum

[WreckRman2]

I've never been one to hide my phone number or address online... hell anyone with any Internet sense can simply get it with a whois lookup so why try and hide it.