# Is this true?



## macfeller (Sep 15, 2004)

In response to a query about macosx.com on a mac USENET group:

"And they scan the content and build aggregate data to sell to
advertisers."

True?

mf


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## DanTekGeek (Sep 15, 2004)

im gonna a go out on a limb here and say no


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## ScottW (Sep 15, 2004)

I read this on the Internet, could it be true?

"The world is flat."


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## symphonix (Sep 15, 2004)

I'd say not true. I've had a macosx.com email address for over two years, and haven't ever had any spam emails at all.


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## Satcomer (Sep 16, 2004)

ScottW said:
			
		

> I read this on the Internet, could it be true?
> 
> "The world is flat."



Your forgot about "The Flat Earth Society".


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## mdnky (Sep 16, 2004)

About as true as me saying my bank account balance makes Bill Gates' or Uncle Sam's account balances look measly (wish it did though) <G>.


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## Lycander (Sep 16, 2004)

In the user control panel, by default our email addresses are hidden from public view. There are many other less sophisticated message boards that do not have such features, or the user neglects to hide their email address properly. What happens then is, little script kiddies run a program that requests a webpage from a site - and to the web server it would look the same as if the request came from a web browser - after capturing the HTML, another tool is used to scan the HTML source for email addresses. If your email address was blatantly printed out, even if in a URL, the scanner will pick it up and add it to a database.

Those buggers run these scripts repeatedly and mine a website for email addresses of people who visit that site.


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## macfeller (Sep 16, 2004)

ScottW said:
			
		

> I read this on the Internet, could it be true?
> 
> "The world is flat."



Now, now. In the very short time I've been here I expected more. More, your lack of specificity might lead one to believe there was some truth to it. Others' comments are reaffirming. Hmmm ... Perhaps that was your intent: Any defense coming you might be considered suspect since it comes from you - let others speak up, which they did. I now wonder if the newsgroup poster wasn't in fact relating a situation stemming from forum use/abuse. Whatever, I have been impressed with the appearance of a great service and the testimonies here and on the other thread. Wonderful.

mf


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## macfeller (Sep 21, 2004)

Original poster here; just wanting to set the record straight. Something in the USENET newsgroup thread which originally caused me to begin this thread made me wonder. I repulled headers for the entire thread. I apologize to Scott and all the macosx.com community. The reference to which I referred was actually to gmail and not to macosx.com at all. I am so glad and happy to have cause to apologize.

All this for ten bucks. Wow! I have passed this site along to the few that care.

mf


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## ScottW (Sep 21, 2004)

You know, I almost mentioned the statement sounded like the typical "attack" on Google's GMAIL service, but you just never know these days. Thanks for the follow-up, I will sleep well tonight knowing my secret is still hidden.


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## macfeller (Sep 21, 2004)

Funny!

Sweet dreams.

mf


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## Lycander (Sep 21, 2004)

To be fair, the whole point of Google's GMail is that you get ads with your email. That's how they can afford to give everyone 1 GB. So people signing up for GMail should know what they're getting themselves into. In other words: you're asking for it. LOL.

By the way, if you read my post up there about email harvesting bots, that still holds true though, no matter how good your service provider may be.


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## Viro (Sep 22, 2004)

Of course... it's very easy to mistake macosx.com with gmail....  

But seriously, I'm just glad to know that Scott and co aren't scanning people's emails. Definitely worth the 10 bucks.


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