TUTORIAL/FAQ

		Question: I do all the right things to avoid spam, yet I still get a ton of it. How are spammers even getting my email address? Answer: Unfortunately, spammers have a variety of methods at their disposal to get email addresses. Here are some of the most common: Leaked Account Databases. Spammers can collect active email addresses by mining leaked databases from compromised organizations like Adobe, LinkedIn, and Snapchat. Email Address Lists. Legitimate businesses don’t sell email address lists, but if a list gets into the hands of an unscrupulous actor, they’ll have no problem selling it to spammers for a low price. Random Email Addresses. Spam costs very little to send, so spammers may start with a popular email service like Gmail and then generate combinations of common words and names as the username. “Crawl and Scrape” Programs. Any text on a webpage containing the @ character is fair game for robotic harvesting tools. Using this method, thousands of addresses can be collected within an hour. Dishonest Unsubscribe Newsletter Links. A spammer will send a false newsletter email that includes an “unsubscribe” link. When you click the link, you’re confirming that a real person exists at your email address, which gets added to lists of valid addresses. Fake Sweepstakes Sites. Spammers can get your email address through a fake sweepstakes site. They might give away a small prize, but their primary goal is to gather your personal information and use it to spam you.