Why Would You Do This?

14 years ago

To see where that email address spreads to. They can track down the original source by using a keyword or just different names. If there's another purpose, I'm unaware :-)

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gwriter

14 years ago

usually just to track if anyone is selling there name

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sanssecret 14 years ago

See, I knew I was thick!

Thanks guys but I still have no idea what you're talking about. See where the email spreads to? Surely it just goes to their email address.

Sell their name? Why would I want to sell their name? Unless it was for a domain, lol. Might go check out all these 'hotel...' or 'single...' haha.

I've just been deleting them cos I figured with dumb names the emails were probably fake as well. The thing is, the list they're signing up for doesn't even have a free giveaway as incentive!
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AJHunter

14 years ago

You would be surprised at what shows up for your usernames on google. Give it a try and you will see what I mean. Just go to google and type any username that you may have used in the past and hit search.

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Derek Allen

14 years ago

Some folks gather email addresses just for the purpose of selling them or renting them to companies. These companies email you with offers. That is where a lot of spam mail comes from.

People put in either fake usernames or keywords to see if their email address is being passed around from company to company.

IMO this is unethical for people to do but this does happen.

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Johnny12345

14 years ago

Originally Posted by sanssecret

I've had a number of folks signing up to one of my lists using keywords as their name... why on earth would anyone do this?

For tracking purposes... and so they know which lists to unsubscribe from. In other words, they opt-in, get your free report, then immediately opt-out.

If you offer real value to your subscribers, you can reduce the risk of that happening (but you can't eliminate it completely).

Regards,

Johnny

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Nickolie0990

14 years ago

This happens a lot, once I had someone put a not so nice word in the name box, and when I send out an email broadcast. When I used the name feature the put that not so nice word as there name. The only way I found out about it, was I got a nasty email from the guy. For some reason why, he couldn't understand that it was he put in the name box.

I think the main reason why people don't put there real name's is for privacy reason's. Other then that, I can't think of any real viable reason why someone would use keywords. It makes sense if they were commenting on a blog, that way the anchor text is a keyword. But for an email opt in??

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JohnMcCabe

14 years ago

There's another reason you are all missing...

There are spiders that troll across the Internet looking for forms -- email response forms, guest books, blog comments, opt-in forms, and so on. When the spider finds these, another bot submits them, hoping for either a response from a live address or a comment published with their keyword and link.

The live addresses are aggregated and sold to spammers, and the posted links add backlinks and link juice, which can also be sold.

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sanssecret 14 years ago

Thanks folks. Like I said, this list doesn't even get a free gift, so they're not signing up for that.

I think you might be right John and it may well be some kind of bot. Trying to remember when it first started and I think it was when I did an upgrade to the latest version of B2evo. Might have been before that but I don't think so.

Think I'll just carry on deleting them. Funny thing is I'd just deleted about 20 of them who'd signed up in the last week and by the time I'd posted my question I had another one! It's a never ending battle.
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kyleb

14 years ago

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

There's another reason you are all missing...

There are spiders that troll across the Internet looking for forms -- email response forms, guest books, blog comments, opt-in forms, and so on. When the spider finds these, another bot submits them, hoping for either a response from a live address or a comment published with their keyword and link.

The live addresses are aggregated and sold to spammers, and the posted links add backlinks and link juice, which can also be sold.

Man that is shady. Friggin *******s. I knew about the link selling I just didn't realize how all of that went about.

Thanks for that info

- Kyle

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FloridaRay

14 years ago

I guess the main reason is privacy...or that they want to track where it leads. I would just delete them.

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DianeNeillJensen

14 years ago

I would definitely delete them.

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Glenellis

14 years ago

It's for the same reason that my dog is still getting credit card offers three years after he died: I wanted to see what groups certain magazines sold my information to, so I subscribed in his name.

Legally, we aren't supposed to be selling this information, and most IM's include a section in their Privacy Policies promising to never ever sell the contact info. These folks are just putting them to the test.

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JohnMcCabe

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Glenellis

It's for the same reason that my dog is still getting credit card offers three years after he died: I wanted to see what groups certain magazines sold my information to, so I subscribed in his name.

Legally, we aren't supposed to be selling this information, and most IM's include a section in their Privacy Policies promising to never ever sell the contact info. These folks are just putting them to the test.

There's no law prohibiting the sale or rental of contact information freely given. In fact, if you looked at the books of many print publications, you'd see that list rental is a major component of their revenue. I can't imagine it's any different for online lists.

The only real requirement is that you disclose in your privacy policy what information you collect and what you do with it. I've read PP that, when translated to plain English, flat out said "we're building a list and we're going to rent it out as often as we can to anyone who meets our price."

If you have concerns about your information, read the privacy policy and the site TOS. You might be giving broader permission than you think you are.

There are only two real areas I see where you might run into problems.

> Sensitive information, such as medical or financial history. Most privacy laws prohibit companies from sharing this information without explicit permission. Read the PP and TOS.

> Selling/renting your contact information after explicitly stating they would not. This falls more under "breach of contract" than privacy laws.

[Standard CYA: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc., etc.]

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zcx 14 years ago

On a tangent to the OPs question - what's the value in having a bot fill out a form with nothing but gibberish? I have a couple offline clients whose website forms get bombarded with those. Filling the forms with URLs and keywords makes some sense (in a really icky way), but I've always wondered what's the point of having a bot fill forms with total nonsense.
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Mohammad Afaq

14 years ago

I think it might be a privacy concern for many people

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Aira Bongco

14 years ago

I do not know this really. It may be because the person is hiding or he simply do not want to use his real name.

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sanssecret

14 years ago

I am totally at a loss with this. I had 10 signups yesterday, all with keywords related to singles/dating as their name. Their email addresses were from a variety of sites, none of which were related to the keywords.

score.com
until.com
corporate.com
illustrate.com

Maybe I need a spam blocker on the signup form, lol.

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San

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JohnMcCabe

14 years ago

Originally Posted by sanssecret

I am totally at a loss with this. I had 10 signups yesterday, all with keywords related to singles/dating as their name. Their email addresses were from a variety of sites, none of which were related to the keywords.

score.com
until.com
corporate.com
illustrate.com

Maybe I need a spam blocker on the signup form, lol.

I don't think there's any "maybe" about it anymore.

Here is an article with a solution embedded...

The Road

For some reason, the titles retrieved from this site get messed up. The title of the article is "PHP Form Spam Prevention".

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acriflex 14 years ago

This is perfect, great information. And a great solution to a growing problem (i percieve it to be a problem, anyway).
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Mrs S

14 years ago

And you learn something else from the WF you never knew before! I never would have thought that bots would be out completing our opt in forms. I have no idea how you're supposed to stay on top of all of this stuff - makes it a good idea to closely monitor your opt ins; especially if the spam ones take you into the next payment level for your autoresponder service.

Thanks
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sanssecret

14 years ago

Thanks for the link John. I've contacted support because unfortunately, (wow, how many more times will I show myself as an idiot lol) I couldn't understand a word of it.

For now, I've elected to go with a double optin, not stopping them signing up, but I'm hoping it stops the confirmation. Seems to be for the moment.

Also going to be contacting my host because it only happens on this one particular signup form and only started happening following the latest upgrade to the blogging software so it looks like it might be related to that.

Thinking I might just give up on the whole damn thing if I'm going to have to get techie. I wonder how many folks with a list of 1000's have nothing more than a list of automated spam subscribers?

Thanks
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San

The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. ~Muhammad Ali
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JohnMcCabe

14 years ago

San, from what I've seen from you here, you are far from an idiot. There's a huge difference between idiocy and simple ignorance.

None of us knew all the techie stuff when we got started. Many very successful people never do learn it. It's just a skill set you've yet to acquire.

The truth is, you will run into "techie" stuff from time to time. When you do, you just have to decide whether to tackle it yourself or find someone who can handle it for you.

Thanks
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sanssecret

14 years ago

John you are too kind. But so right.

I still gall when I remember that I didn't even know what 'hosting' was a couple of years ago. I have to remind myself how much I've learned sometimes.

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

San, from what I've seen from you here, you are far from an idiot. There's a huge difference between idiocy and simple ignorance.

None of us knew all the techie stuff when we got started. Many very successful people never do learn it. It's just a skill set you've yet to acquire.

The truth is, you will run into "techie" stuff from time to time. When you do, you just have to decide whether to tackle it yourself or find someone who can handle it for you.

Thanks

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San

The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. ~Muhammad Ali
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Why Would You Do This?

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