Earlier in the week, I received an email about spam and I just wanted to take a moment or two to re-emphasize my thoughts on spam and your privacy.
Like most bloggers, I use a service to send out feeds via RSS and email. The most popular service is Feedburner, which is what I use at taxgirl.com. Feedburner was acquired last year by Google in what is clearly Google’s attempt to take over the world. You can read Feedburner/Google’s privacy policy here. More or less, Google requires opt-in consent for third party email, so you won’t get on a mailing list by simply providing your email for a feed like mine. In other words, subscribing to my email feed does not equal solicitations!
I’ve noticed an uptick in spam on all of my accounts this spring – from gmail and mac (both of which normally have great filters) to erblaw and taxgirl. Estimates are that more than 80% of all email received is spam. Nice, huh?
I just wanted to put your mind at ease that your email address is safe with me – I don’t do a thing with it – and with Feedburner. Unfortunately, spammers exist and they will spoof, steal headers, phish, etc. as much as they can until they are stopped. I hate it, too. Trust me. You can read more about how much I hate spam here.
