HOW DO SPAMMERS KNOW WHO I AM?

   This is the million dollar question.  The answer is: you told them (well, most of the time anyway).

   There are several primary ways that spammers initially obtain addresses:

1. Via website submissions
2. Via public records
3. Via purchased lists (generally tied to website submissions)
4. Via viruses

1. Via website submissions:
   Many times when you visit websites, you are asked for your email address.  It could be signing up for a contest, registering a product online for warranty or service purposes, or just filling out a survey questionnaire.
    There are a few guidelines you should follow when filling out information online:
        - If an email address is not required, don't enter it.
        - Look for a box you can check to opt out of any mailing offers.  Some mail considered "spam" is actually mail from vendors you failed to opt out of in the beginning.
        - Look for something similar to "we occasionally make this information available to carefully screened partners" and do not give them the permission to do so.  You may trust the site you're at, and you may even trust the companies they trust.  However, since there's nothing there for you to specify that you don't want that other company to share that information, they can (and often will) distribute this information however they want.
    The bottom line is be very aware of what you're filling out and where, and ask yourself if you trust this company with that information.  If you have any reservations, don't enter that information.  Some internet users sign up for free email accounts (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.,) solely to enter into these forms and collect any data from them.  This protects their private email account from receiving unwanted messages.

2. Via public records:
   If you've ever registered a domain website, published a website with your contact information, posted to an internet newsgroup, participated in an online discussion, posted your personal information at a high-school alumni site, etc.,. chances are your email address will be placed on spam lists.  Spammers frequent internet chat rooms, USENet discussion groups, public domain registration WHOIS databases, and basic websites to cull information for their lists.  This is the easiest--and the most popular--way of obtaining your information.

3. Via viruses:
   No matter what you do to prevent your email address from falling into the wrong hands, there's one variable that's more or less outside of your direct control: your friends and family.
    Many viruses email themselves out to everybody in your address book and/or recipients who have sent you mail that is sitting in your Inbox.  Some email programs automatically place people you reply to in your address book.
    You'll notice that a lot of spam contains something like "to unsubscribe reply to this message with REMOVE in the subject line", which you do NOT want to do (see What can I do to stop/prevent receiving spam? for more information by clicking HERE).  In most cases, this address has been set up to collect information to see which spam recipients are actually valid email addresses.
   If this spam-collection address is in your address book, and you become infected with a virus, you may send out a message to all users in your address book--including the spammer.  Now this spammer has a list of all the addresses in your address book.  I'm sure your friends would thank you for it if it could ever be traced back to you. :)
    Because of this, it's a good idea to disable this feature in your mail software (consult your documentation or the in-program Help documentation for instructions on how to do this).

4. Via purchased lists:
   So your email address is out there.  Spammers have you in their sights, but there's really no guarantee that the email address they have is valid, operational, or being checked by someone....UNTIL IT'S CONFIRMED.  How do they confirm an address?  By receiving auto-replies from you, or you replying to messages they send asking to unsubscribe.
    So what do they do with these confirmed addresses?  They sell them at a premium price, that's what.  People (read: spammers) will pay top dollar for confirmed email addresses.  "Hey, send your spam to this guy, he'll see it!"  If you were sending advertisements out via postal mail, you wouldn't waste your time on addresses that don't exist, or addresses where the person never checks their mailbox.  Spammers would prefer not to, either (although it's a lot cheaper to send spam than pay postage on 10 million mailings).  So they purchase lists of so-called "confirmed" addresses and send spam to them.

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