Shocker: Spammers Don't Protect Privacy Of Buyers

from the as-if-they-care-to-protect-privacy dept

There are more stories every day about various companies not doing an adequate job protecting people's privacy. However, at least those companies act like they wanted to keep the data private. At the other end of the extreme are spammers, who are gleefully selling all of the private info they have collected from those ignorant people who buy from spam. There are, of course, those who believe that anyone stupid enough to buy from a spammer deserves whatever else happens to them, but it's unlikely those people realize that their data is getting passed around. While the old wisdom was that people who bought from spammers had just their email addresses put on "suckers lists" that got sold around, today's spammers are giving up all sorts of info, including "home addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, Internet protocol (IP) addresses, and prescription histories." One more reason (as if you needed any more) to avoid buying from spam. That last link also includes the idea that any time a spammer is successfully caught -- anyone who bought from that spammer should be publicly humiliated. Might be one way to cut down on spam buyers -- though, probably not a particularly legal one.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 18 Mar 2005 @ 1:36am

    Moving into the Assassination Trade

    Could spammers generate hit lists for activists who want to kill lots of people? In Korea, the latest anti-globalization protesters have set a Japanese car dealer on fire, and scrawled red graffiti promising to kill any customers of Japanese cars for the next 3 generations.

    Should US anti-globalization activists also make, say, customer lists of SUV's, fur coats, and what not, to kill them and their great-grandchildren?

    http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/fnn/20050318/20050318-00000854-fnn-int.ht ml

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    blorpus, 18 Mar 2005 @ 5:30pm

    bad D-chip I bought from a spammer

    That D-chip I bought from a spammer must not be working -- Dorpus postings are still coming through. Now I have to worry about being publicly shamed as well as reading more Dorpography.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Helpful hint, 18 Mar 2005 @ 6:17pm

      Re: bad D-chip I bought from a spammer

      maybe someone could create a greasemonkey script to de-dorpus techdirt.

      http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2005 @ 12:57am

        Re: bad D-chip I bought from a spammer

        Step 1: create a techdirt membership for posting.
        Step 2: eliminate non-member postings to the site.
        Step 3: ban dorpus from techdirt

        simple really.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          NoNoNo, 19 Mar 2005 @ 11:48am

          Re: bad D-chip I bought from a spammer

          Funny. But having them ban non-member posting would ban you.

          link to this | view in chronology ]


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