Either that – or someone had a very bad first day at work.

Now if we were dealing with names, addresses and phone numbers, that’s a different story. I would have serious problems selling that info……although again, $25K or $100K could do a lot of good. And let’s not kid ourselves – our personal information is bought and sold a hundred times a day between corporations for far less noble reasons.

Don’t get me started on Real Estate people. :)

A long time ago, when I was one of the first customers of one of the first ISPs in Montana, I spent some time knocking around the system.

I ran into a file that, essentially, was their entire client list, their phone numbers, addresses, methods of payment and usernames/emails. Everything but passwords was in that file.

I immediately notified them and they said they were aware of it and that they were going to do something about it.

Months later, one of the executives was forced out, and what did he do? Started his own ISP, spamming everyone in that file telling them of his new, less expensive venture.

Ooops.

Sounds like these Moda Condos people need to look into Campaign Monitor or something.

In all of this I have to think that it’s the biggest waste of money ever. I refuse to believe you could even consider making a living from spam, or even junk snail mail. While companies may pay good money for it, where is the come back? Who buys this crap? Is it not the case that the only come back is that when you get found out you get hated and loose business (a la Sony rootkits)?

Perhaps this was a simple mistake by some inexperienced startup companies, perhaps it’s more like gross negligence, but while punishable by death in the industry, it’s not going to change anyones life but the person who sells the list first.

In short, I guess what I am trying to say is… Get in there!

But I think your quoted prices are quite high. I guess lot’s of people would also sell the list for $500, or even less. This probably has to do with the ‘crime’: giving out someone’s email adress isn’t considered THAT harmful (I’d say phone numbers would be worse, to me), with all the spam occurring anyway. I also think that you earn quite some more than some of your readers, and while I don’t say that less earning people are less moral, it makes sense that their reference frame would be different: Just as an example: It could be that $50.000 for you could be a 20% raise, while for someone else, it could be a 100% increase, or (a lot) more. Altho, the people in your new ‘housing club’ would be in a somewhat comparable income range.
But, why are you leaving? Didn’t like how the new carpets in the common area’s worked out?? :)

I think by now, everyone that knows me has heard my favorite speech at least once: “Either e-mail me personally (you-to-me only), or don’t e-mail me at all.” If they decline in word or deed, goodbye. Gets ugly with family.

The worst is when you finally hand out your business e-mail to a customer and they proceed to put you on some sort of mailing list for their political opinions. Give it 2 days and you’re in 30 people’s virus-infected Outlook address book, and the new e-mail sound coming from your computer just won’t shut up. Then you have to send the polite, “I use this e-mail address for business communication only, please take me off your list” letter and hope you don’t offend your customer too much.

Thankfully, I’m proud to report only 3 spams in the last 4 years on that account. All were random. And it’s most certainly because I take much care giving it out. My Gmail takes most of the heat for me.

Which begs the question, Mike: Did you give them a free webmail address, or your mikeindustries address?

For the record, you make $30,000/year on Dreamhost, don’t go selling lists to boot. :)

Everyday I think of that restaurant. But it’s not a positive association. They should at least buy me and my wife a free dinner for all of this…

Hmm.. good luck with this one!