The Pros And Cons Of Not Giving Your Real Email Address When Purchasing

I honestly never thought that I'd be bringing up this subject but something
happened to me just now that I believe should be discussed, probably more
for those members who are buyers rather than sellers.

I don't know how you run your business, but when somebody buys something
from me, I send a personal thank you. I think it adds a nice touch.

Well, I just send a thank you and got back a very rude autoresponder saying
that if I had read their ad, I'd know that this wasn't a real address.

Okay, I didn't read any ad. It was the address attached to the Clickbank
purchase. Okay, so apparently this person buys things and doesn't want to
be bothered after the purchase, and that's fine.

But this thank you wasn't just a thank you. It was also meant to provide
them with some information that would have been beneficial to them in
regard to the product itself.

Now, they did provide a way for me to get a hold of them. Unfortunately, it
involves going to their web site, filling in some form and jumping through
a ton of hoops just to get a valid email from them, which ultimately will
end up putting me on THEIR list.

I think this is more than any merchant should have to go through in order
to contact a customer.

FYI. This isn't a rant. I'm not really upset about it personally, but I do feel
bad for my customer. He's not getting my thank you, which is bad enough,
but he's also not getting some info that I feel he could use.

So here is what I want to bring up for discussion, because I am sure there
are pros and cons to doing what this person did. I'm just not seeing them.

So please, I'd like to know your opinions on customers giving junk emails
when making purchases. The good and bad on both ends.