I've just got junk mail advertising Xanax and other drugs, sent to an email address I use only for Live Journal. The subject is "Xanax - $1.07/pill
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I think my original settings should have stopped website scanners from collecting my LiveJournal website address. They were:
"Show your contact information on your LiveJournal?" ticked "Who can view your contact info?" Everybody (there isn't any!) "If visible, e-mail address to be displayed:" Don't show e-mail address "Mangle your displayed e-mail address" Unticked ('cos it's not shown) "Block Robots/Spiders from indexing your journal" Unticked
Have changed them to:
"Show your contact information on your LiveJournal?" ticked "Who can view your contact info?" Friends "If visible, e-mail address to be displayed:" Don't show e-mail address "Mangle your displayed e-mail address" Ticked "Block Robots/Spiders from indexing your journal" Ticked
Hmmm strange. Though if it was "everybody" it might have been that any robots that stumbled across your user info page, collected the e-mail address from the Webpage itself? I'm not sure, but might be why.
I have been getting spam in my e-mail long before I joined LJ, so I don't know whether any is because of LJ. I always delete it without opening so that no read receipts go back to the spammers as they will then know that my account is active.
That's what I thought. I've raised an "Abuse" support request with Live Journal. My special Live Journal email address may have been harvested as the email passed from Live Journal to my email host.
Have just had a reply from LiveJournal technical support:
LiveJournal does not sell, rent, or otherwise give away your email address without your consent as indicated in the Privacy Policy located at http://www.livejournal.com/legal/privacy.bml.
Unfortunately, LiveJournal and our users have become an enormous target for spammers and email address harvesters. As you are using the address "livejournal@catcons.co.uk", we can only suggest that a spam harvester aware of the domain simply tried common Internet names and phrases including "livejournal" assuming that at least some of these would be delivered successfully. If this is an alias, you may wish to try something more obscure.
Additionally, we strongly encourage make use of spam filtering and report the spam to its originating provider.
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I think my original settings should have stopped website scanners from collecting my LiveJournal website address. They were:
"Show your contact information on your LiveJournal?" ticked
"Who can view your contact info?" Everybody (there isn't any!)
"If visible, e-mail address to be displayed:" Don't show e-mail address
"Mangle your displayed e-mail address" Unticked ('cos it's not shown)
"Block Robots/Spiders from indexing your journal" Unticked
Have changed them to:
"Show your contact information on your LiveJournal?" ticked
"Who can view your contact info?" Friends
"If visible, e-mail address to be displayed:" Don't show e-mail address
"Mangle your displayed e-mail address" Ticked
"Block Robots/Spiders from indexing your journal" Ticked
Reply
I have been getting spam in my e-mail long before I joined LJ, so I don't know whether any is because of LJ. I always delete it without opening so that no read receipts go back to the spammers as they will then know that my account is active.
Reply
Reply
LiveJournal does not sell, rent, or otherwise give away your email address without your consent as indicated in the Privacy Policy located at http://www.livejournal.com/legal/privacy.bml.
Unfortunately, LiveJournal and our users have become an enormous target for spammers and email address harvesters. As you are using the address "livejournal@catcons.co.uk", we can only suggest that a spam harvester aware of the domain simply tried common Internet names and phrases including "livejournal" assuming that at least some of these would be delivered successfully. If this is an alias, you may wish to try something more obscure.
Additionally, we strongly encourage make use of spam filtering and report the spam to its originating provider.
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