Is it legal for your ISP to give out your e-mail adress?

[hollyoaks777]

Is it legal for your ISP to give out your e-mail adress? thank you in advance

 

[marsmimar]

The only way you'll know your provider's rules is to directly ask its representatives or take the time to read its TOS and privacy statements; let's face it, most people don't bother. Some of these statements are very easy to read, while others are filled with legalese, making the process a more painful undertaking. But regardless of the format, it's in your best interest to understand how your ISP treats various privacy issues. This article gives more information about ISPs and privacy issues:

Smart Computing Article - Is Your ISP On Your Side?

 

[hollyoaks777]

The only way you'll know your provider's rules is to directly ask its representatives or take the time to read its TOS and privacy statements; let's face it, most people don't bother. Some of these statements are very easy to read, while others are filled with legalese, making the process a more painful undertaking. But regardless of the format, it's in your best interest to understand how your ISP treats various privacy issues. This article gives more information about ISPs and privacy issues:

Smart Computing Article - Is Your ISP On Your Side?

Thanks mate I had a read of their TOS and it doesn't say anything about it. It just goes on about e-billing. I made a phone call to tell them to take it off their database they said they have but I think they will still have note of it.

 

[roncerr]

If you're trying to reduce spam all you can do is filter it. Set up a filter on your ISP's server if they offer that service.

 

[hollyoaks777]

If you're trying to reduce spam all you can do is filter it. Set up a filter on your ISP's server if they offer that service.

I don't know if they offer that but I have outlook 2010. So I can block my ISP but if they sell it on then I will have to change my e-mail account. Or is there something else I can do?.

 

[Digerati]

It is not likely they "sell" your address, but they may have marketing partners that they share information with. But certainly, there are badguys that seek out email addresses, and even have address generators that "guess" addresses. Your address is not really private, and can be obtained by badguys from any number of sources. If you have friends that pass along jokes, badguys can get it. If you use your address to register accounts on the Internet, the site may give it away, or sell it.

I use MailWasherPro for my spamblocker. It is, by far, the best IMO for one major reason, it works between your email client (Outlook, in your case) and the mail servers and allows you to process your email on the servers. Whereas most other spamblockers, including Outlook's Junk Filter, download the entire email, and any potentially infected attachments on to your machine, and then it processes your mail. To me, that is like inviting a stranger into your home, and then asking what he wants.

The down side is you have another program you have to learn, but MW, especially this brand new version, is pretty easy at that.

My ISP, Cox Communications, offers spamblocking, but I don't really like it. Unless you change the defaults, false positives are shoved into a special spam folder only accessable via your browser and webmail. And since Cox lets you set up 9 email accounts, and you must log into each account separately, it is a hassle. It is better than nothing however.

With MailWasher, you can configure it to use multiple accounts. So, for example, I have it check all my Cox accounts, my GMail account and a couple other accounts so all my email is viewable from one user interface. From there, I can process all my mail, and delete all that I don't want to pull down to my machine.

In any case, until spam is made illegal, you will always get spam so changing your address will not really help anything, unless a badguy uses your address to send spam.

 

[hollyoaks777]

It is not likely they "sell" your address, but they may have marketing partners that they share information with. But certainly, there are badguys that seek out email addresses, and even have address generators that "guess" addresses. Your address is not really private, and can be obtained by badguys from any number of sources. If you have friends that pass along jokes, badguys can get it. If you use your address to register accounts on the Internet, the site may give it away, or sell it.

I use MailWasherPro for my spamblocker. It is, by far, the best IMO for one major reason, it works between your email client (Outlook, in your case) and the mail servers and allows you to process your email on the servers. Whereas most other spamblockers, including Outlook's Junk Filter, download the entire email, and any potentially infected attachments on to your machine, and then it processes your mail. To me, that is like inviting a stranger into your home, and then asking what he wants.

The down side is you have another program you have to learn, but MW, especially this brand new version, is pretty easy at that.

My ISP, Cox Communications, offers spamblocking, but I don't really like it. Unless you change the defaults, false positives are shoved into a special spam folder only accessable via your browser and webmail. And since Cox lets you set up 9 email accounts, and you must log into each account separately, it is a hassle. It is better than nothing however.

With MailWasher, you can configure it to use multiple accounts. So, for example, I have it check all my Cox accounts, my GMail account and a couple other accounts so all my email is viewable from one user interface. From there, I can process all my mail, and delete all that I don't want to pull down to my machine.

In any case, until spam is made illegal, you will always get spam so changing your address will not really help anything, unless a badguy uses your address to send spam.

Thanks for taking the time to explain mate off to get Mail washer

 

[unifex]

Personally I never use any of those ISP email addresses. Lately, I am using gmail a lot, in addition to my work email, and I am not sure my ISP is aware of any of those. As for spam, I have a special (free) email address that I use solely for the purpose of registering for websites - quite unfortunately, nowadays you almost can't use most websites without "registering", even if you are there once. That email account is full of spam, no filters help. But at least this way it does not mess with my work.

 

[Barman58]

I too use outlook and multiple Free/ISP email accounts and control spam by a combination of spam filters - I use the provider's spam filter, (I use exclusively IMAP or Outlook Connector for my accounts, so do not have the issue of having to log-in to the website to check spam.), and run outlook's filter on it's lowest setting.

The Server-side filter picks up most of the obvious Spam, the Outlook one controls most other - I manually add any that get through to outlook's filter. I also mark any spam in the account's spam bin, in outlook, for outlook's filter, (this prevents the spam caught by one server-side filter from getting through if sent to any of the other accounts, even if their filter misses it.).

I do go to the website if this is required to mark spam but many providers will do this just by the spam being moved into the accounts spam folder, in outlook. There is sometimes a need to remove a sender from the server-side list, that is not spam, but this is rare.

This is a complex system but after using this for a good while I do not see much spam in my inbox, although a lot is sent to me.

 

[Digerati]

Have you looked in your GMail spam folder lately? I regularly find legitimate mail in there too. It will often be forum reply notifications, including some from here. I find it frustrating, but inevitable - and all the more reason to never let a spam blocker automatically delete anything.

 

[BCXtreme]

Have you looked in your GMail spam folder lately? I regularly find legitimate mail in there too. It will often be forum reply notifications, including some from here. I find it frustrating, but inevitable - and all the more reason to never let a spam blocker automatically delete anything.

Doesn't Gmail have a whitelist feature?

In answer to the topic title:

Unfortunately, it's perfectly legal for ANYONE to give out your email address, last time I checked. If a company/ISP has a privacy policy that specifically states that they won't give out your email, and then you discover that they have, you could probably sue them and that's about it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any recourse at all, because when you give a website/company your information, you're basically agreeing to the privacy policy (like signing a contract).

Personally, I think that selling/leasing email mailing lists should be illegal. It makes me mad that a company can make money by giving my email address to another company, especially when I have no idea what that other company might be, or who they might give my address to in turn.

 

[Barman58]

Have you looked in your GMail spam folder lately? I regularly find legitimate mail in there too. It will often be forum reply notifications, including some from here. I find it frustrating, but inevitable - and all the more reason to never let a spam blocker automatically delete anything.

Yes - I check my email in outlook constantly - and as this an IMAP account and I have the spam folder subscribed, it's easy to see when new entries appear in the spam folder.

Gmail, uses labels to impersonate the functionality of the folders of a normal IMAP account - simply dragging any good email into the correct location removes the Spam label, so should stop the repeat of the error. With other accounts I will sometimes go to the website to update a white-list where implemented.

As for deletion of spam Email the Gmail filter is set to delete after 30 days - my spam email is manually checked, and deleted if needed, long before that.

 

[Digerati]

Well, I might have to play with IMAP - I currently have gmail forward all mail to another account, which I then pull down via POP3. But it does not forward "suspected" spam.

 

[Barman58]

I assume from the way that Outlook 2010 works that Microsoft believes that IMAP is the way to go - if you let Outlook auto configure an account it will default to IMAP, if available, over POP3. It is I suppose closer to the way that exchange works.

The other major advantage for me is that as the server and local machine are automatically kept synchronised. This means that I can access my mail from multiple locations. (Desktop & Laptop), knowing that any changes I make in one place is automatically reflected in the other

 

[Digerati]

Well, that may be for OL2010 - but I've used 2007, 2003, 2000, XP, and OL97, and they went for POP3.

The other major advantage for me is that as the server and local machine are automatically kept synchronised. This means that I can access my mail from multiple locations. (Desktop & Laptop), knowing that any changes I make in one place is automatically reflected in the other

True - but then that is a major selling point for all web-based email programs too.

But I use OL to keep track of my appointments, contacts, and notes and I sync them with my PDA too. So webmail is not for me.

 

[Barman58]

One advantage I find with the outlook/IMAP route is that I can read email offline - not to easy with a pure web based set-up

I also tend to move mails, from subsidiary accounts, that I want to keep, into one Gmail account, in outlook, using rules, so I have a built-in off-site backup of important information.

Also by using a live account with the Hotmail/outlook connector and setting this account as default in Outlook 2010,for the calender, tasks & contacts, I gain the same off-line, off-site backup, and synchronisation benefits, that IMAP provides for email.

 

[hollyoaks777]

Have you looked in your GMail spam folder lately? I regularly find legitimate mail in there too. It will often be forum reply notifications, including some from here. I find it frustrating, but inevitable - and all the more reason to never let a spam blocker automatically delete anything.

yes i have noticed that with outlook 2010 mate.