Anti-spam best practice: Avoid posting your email address publicly anywhere on the internet
We had several reports over the weekend from members who received spam messages directly to their private email accounts. Here’s what they look like:
One irate member even questioned whether we’d sold his email address to the spammers. We share your pain – we hate spammers just as much as you do. And for the record, as we’ve stated clearly in Biznik’s terms of service, we will NEVER share your email address with anyone.
We did some investigating, and here’s what we discovered. Quite a few members have, perhaps without thinking, posted their private email address onto public pages of Biznik, such as into promotions, into Biz Talk posts, or on their profiles. This is a very bad thing to do if you want to avoid spammers, because once you’ve made your email public in this way, it’s a simple matter for spammers to harvest it.
To avoid this from happening, we created the private, in-house messaging system which we recommend all members use on Biznik to contact one another. It’s the only way we can prevent your email address from being harvested. So please, DO NOT publish your email in any public forum on Biznik if you want to avoid getting spammed.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Dan,
I really appreciate the way Biznik protects its members! I’ve never had a problem with spam, and when I network through Biznik or potential clients contact me, it’s always MY option to give out my business email address.
Thanks for a system that really watches out for those of us involved in this great community.
Cheers, Lynn
April 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I got this too! I actually thought it was pretty funny. I was trying to think of witty responses, but just decided to delete it. Certainly won’t be publishing my email publicly anymore!
Best regards,
Andy