The Best Way To Deal With EventBrite Spam (Or LinkedIn or other corporate spammers)

[Clinton]

Had an email invite today from EventBrite... to some useless bloody event that I would never have signed up for. How did they get my email address? No idea, but I suspect the event organiser bought a list of email addresses and uploaded it to EventBrite and EventBrite duly obliged by sending everyone on that list an invite to the event.

That is outrageous. I know, I could simply delete the email. But then I could get follow up emails and "invites" to other bullsh*t events at EventBrite now that they have my email address.

Fortunately, there is an unsubscribe button in the email if you want to unsubscribe from future event notifications. Great! You can click that and set the preferences for your email address.

Except that you can't. You have to register first and provide them your first name and surname! I didn't want their email in the first place and now I have to share data with them. Share data in exchange for what? In exchange for them stopping their spam?

This is taking the p*ss. Here's what I did:

1. Signed up with a fake name. In this case I used the first name of Event and the surname of Brite. In future if I get any email addressed to Mr Event Brite I'll know which platform sold my email address (or got hacked).

2. Went to account settings to change my email address. Replaced the existing address with a completely made up one in the form of <something>@EventBrite.com.

3. Went to email preferences. Found that by default my new account is signed up to updates, monthly tips, marketing emails, all kinds of other junk! But, the good news, I didn't have to change any of those settings. Let them send loads of junk, it's all going to their own domain anyway.

4. Hit save.

So that's it - just create an account with a fake name and change your email address.

EventBrite aren't the only large company sending out large volumes of spam. Social networks, Opportunity.com and all kinds of other firms do it as well. I'm creating this thread in the hope that it will feature in Google search and give people the idea to do more than just unsubscribing - but to actually turn the spam around so it goes back to the sender's own domain.

How do you do deal with this kind of spam?

 

[Ian J]

How do you do deal with this kind of spam?

I have the domain deathtospam.co.uk and when I sign up to various sites including forums I use that domain which forwards to my personal account.

My email address for this forum for example is ukbf at deathtospam.co.uk so if I receive any spam addressed to that email address I know where it has come from.

All my mail is filtered via mailwasher and like yourself I use spamcop for reporting unsolicited emails.

My current annoyance is those companies that send me an unsolicited email that I just delete as I'm not interested and they follow it up with another asking if I have had a chance to review it yet or some such other rubbish

 

[DavidWH]

Or when you buy something in store and they want to e-mail you the receipt, which they duly do, but also bombard you with weekly e-mails you never asked for.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I use a unique email address if I sign up for anything, usually includes the domain name of the site. I set up a forwarder in cpanel to a private, never published address. If I get spam, then I delete the forwarder and it just goes to blackhole never to be seen again.

However, I might start taking on your idea and changing the forwarder to send it right back to them... Or maybe a script that multiplies by ten and sends it right back to them.

 

[The Byre]

Why don't you people just mark all that SM rubbish and unsolicited guff as spam?

 

[Clinton]

@The Byre, partly public service but also partly because you need to deal with spam properly if you want to keep it under control.

I've got spamassassin etc. configured on my servers. I've got email harvester bots blocked from my contact page (and wherever email addresses are public on any of my sites). I've got various other measures in place. But the spam nowadays comes from elsewhere.

One of the biggest problem is idiots - people who give Facebook / LinkedIn and other companies' access to their address book. They think they're doing their contacts a favour. What actually happens is that those networks extract email addresses of everyone that person ever had contact with ... and spams all of them with invitations to join the network (or whatever).

Why do people do that?! How can anyone be that stupid ... or have such little respect for other people's email addresses? How can they be so stupid as to give social networks like Facebook their email passwords?! Amazing!

The other problem is contacts / social network connections / companies you've bought from in the past etc., who think that simply because they have acquired your email address legitimately they have the right to add you to their newsletter or send you other "updates". I recommend blacklisting such companies who have no respect for your email address and to avoid sending them any further business.

 

[The Byre]

The answer is to avoid FaceOff, TwitFace, FaceLink, MyFace, LimpedIn, LimpOff, LimpOut, InstaFace and all the other pointless, stupid social media platforms, filled, as they are, with vapid school girls, bored housewives and unemployed insurance salesmen looking for work.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Why don't you people just mark all that SM rubbish and unsolicited guff as spam?

Because when you are away and using Mail2Web to read emails it doesn't cut out the spam.

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

In theory, GDPR should help deal with issues such as spam as the fines that can be applied are significant. Organisations will need to have very specific reasons and proof for holding and processing your data.

Art. 6 GDPR - Lawfulness of processing

Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies:

1. the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;
2. processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract;
3. processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;
4. processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person;
5. processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller;
6. processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.

 

[Clinton]

The answer is to avoid FaceOff, TwitFace..etc

You don't get it. It's because you're NOT on those networks that you keep getting invitations to join.

The problem is not us being members of the networks, it's other people. It's not even all other people. It's the ones stupid enough to give their email passwords to these third party companies.

In theory, GDPR should help deal with issues such as spam as the fines that can be applied are significant.

Yeah, and I've already seen numerous discussions online on how to get around GDPR.

For one, if you own a business then you're fair game ... because GDPR protections don't extend to businesses.

Then, bloody marketing and "business development" people of firms desperate for business are starting to stretch permissions. So, for example, if you give someone your business card it's not because you want them to know who you are but because you want them to send you marketing emails!

I have a boilerplate reply I use for these people and it's quite curt. They don't like it and don't seem to see the problem. "But you gave me your business card, mate!". "Yes, but that's because you asked me what I do for a living!"

Any businesses that desperate for sales are businesses worth avoiding, IMO.

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

For one, if you own a business then you're fair game ... because GDPR protections don't extend to businesses.

Where does it say GDPR doesn't extend to businesses? Everything I've read points to it applying to both B2C and B2B.

 

[STDFR33]

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679

Natural persons.

A sole trader would still be protected by the legislation, but not a partnership or a company.

Not my area of expertise, however so I'm happy to be proved wrong.

 

[pelparc]

We have robots on our site that spend all day trying to sign email addresses up to our newsletter. So if you do receive an unsolicited email it might not be an intentional attempt to spam you. Luckily we have a couple of blocks in place to identify and remove the ones that do get through.

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

I was looking at it from a personal data point of view with regards to GDPR.

From Article 2's Definitions:

1) 'personal data' means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

So email addresses such as [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] are all identifiable to a person (data subject) and therefore covered under GDPR. I'm assuming info@ addresses won't be.

I'm no expert on the matter, just my take and there does seem to be a lot of confusion about this and ePrivacy.

 

[Clinton]

...there does seem to be a lot of confusion ....

And where there's confusion there'll be some pratt taking advantage and using a broad interpretation to justify pitching whatever crap he happens to be selling today.