Friday, June 22, 2007

Yahoo Answers! = SPAM



Don't ever ask, or for that matter, answer, a question on Yahoo Answers! It only leads to lots of spam in your mailbox.

I asked a question once using my Yahoo email account. I figured it would be alright, since you really have to have a Yahoo account to ask a question. I thought it would be fairly secure. I only used this email account to sign into things that are associated with Yahoo and which force you to get a Yahoo account, like Geocities and Flickr. I don't use it for personal correspondence, and I don't use it to sign guestbooks on people's websites (which I never do anyway, but if I did, I wouldn't put down my email address). I was very selective with this email. I used it for mailorder, and certainly, I received email newsletters from vendors that I already made purchases from, which is ok. But one day, a few spam emails popped up on this account, that, theoretically, no one should know about unless it was a vendor or website that I've already been in contact with. Not coincidentally, the date these spam emails started appearing was less than a week after the date of the email from Yahoo Answers, telling me that I've successfully asked a question (plus the follow-up emails informing me of the answers I've received to my question). I guess spammers are trolling Yahoo Answers! for email addresses. Of course, it's not hard to do. They just look at the username and add "@yahoo.com" to the end of it. Now my inbox is filled with spam, and I've had to abandon this particular account.

Word to the wise: If you need to ask Yahoo Answers! a question, set up a new Yahoo account - one which you don't care will soon be overrun with spam.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or you could just use a different screen name to your account name. Mine is nothing like my account name.

Anonymous said...

IDIOT! That's supposed to happen! It's not spam! Go to "My Activity," then "My preferences," and uncheck the box that says "E-mail me when I receive a new answer to a question I've asked." TADA! Problem solved, idiot.