| Finding your
e-mail contact info on the web No matter how
careful you are with publishing your e-mail address on your
webpage, it could have been published other places, even
in places you don’t know about - It can be on a member site of an
association you belong to, on any of your friends’ sites or
sites that are connected to your work place.
For instance, I found that mine had been included in the
notes on someone's WorldConnect data - giving me credit for the
research, which was nice, but of course it puts it out there
where potential spambots can find it.
I also found it on the RootsWeb mailing list pages. I
was at one time very careful to use my generic e-mail account
when answering on a mailing list, but I forgot a few times and
now it's out there.
So......how do you find where your e-mail address might be
out on the internet? It's really very easy. You search for
it. Go to one of the major search sites - Google, Yahoo, Alta
Vista, etc. - and type your e-mail address in the search box.
You can find websites/pages where
your e-mail address is found.
What then? Well, you can try to e-mail the site owner and ask them to remove
your address. It may not help, but it's worth the effort. Tip:
Always use a freebie e-mail account (i.e. Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.)
rather than your regular e-mail account for posting to message
boards or answering mailing lists. That way, if spam gets
too bad, you can delete the account easily and enroll for
another without having to change your regular e-mail account
with your friends and family. |
