Spam Addresses and Apps for Sale on E-bay

Your email address may be for sale on ebay. Better make sure your anti-spam filter software is up to date. Dozens of lists, some containing hundreds of millions of email addresses are for sale. The bidding can start as low as $10.

Senders of junk messages purchase the lists to locate their victims. Some lists claim to be targeted at certain kinds of people, like business owners. All of the lists contain e-mail addresses of poor suckers who are about to get spammed. Ironically, ebay has recently taken steps to stop unwanted messages falsely sent under it's name.

Frequently the sellers claim the lists are "opt-in" - that somehow they found 200 million people who in fact want spam email. More likely these email addresses are compiled from anyplace they can find them. They are gathered from the web, the usenet, old domain registration information and other spam e-mail lists.

There of course some poor souls who got added to a spam list because they "opted-in". It's not hard to do. Have you ever sent someone an "e-card" or used some similar service? Then odds are you signed yourself up. Sometimes it pays to read the fine print.

Commonly these lists will be packaged with software spam programs to send trash messages. This makes ebay a one-stop solution for spammers. The lists have a large percentage of overlap between them. If you make it onto one of the lists, it's likely just a matter of time until your mail address is on all of them.

Once your listed - there is no getting off. You can help minimize your junk message intake by using spam control software. You're only other option is to get a new mail address.

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