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AOL Employee Arrested For Selling Email Addresses To Spammers
from the feel-safe-now? dept
People have always claimed that AOL often gave out their email addresses to spammers, though many have questioned whether or not that was true. One that that's clear is they make it way too easy for employees of the company to access customer information. A few months ago we wrote about an AOL customer service rep who used the info she had access to in order to insinuate herself into the lives of celebrities who used AOL. The latest is that a 24-year-old engineer at the company has been arrested for selling a database of 92 million AOL user email addresses along with their phone numbers and zip codes. He sold this database to some spammers for about $50,000. How long until a class action suit is filed by AOL customers because the company didn't protect their info?
Reader Comments
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Earthlink is just as bad
A couple years back I had earthlink DSL setup. about a month or so after I ordered service I got around to setting up their mail account. The thing was just chocked full of spam, 1300 pieces. I called them and patiently explained that this was a virgin account and they might have somebody on the inside leaking addresses (the address was unusual enough to be missed by a good portion of the carpet bombing spam runs). They told me I needed to turn on their spam filters and refused to understand that there might be a more serous issue.. LOL. Later somebody told me that the biz sales guys would cut all kinds of deals and sell their address list to absolutely anyone and everyone to generate reveune... I have no idea if that is true or not but given their refusal to escalate or research why a virgin account would be attracting that kind of action I, tend to believe it.
-Griffon
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you've got jail
I have a cable modem with the local provider here and I had a dozen spams before I finished setting up my mail account. A hint: don't use your webmail address books; my parents never got spam until I put them in my address book.
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Re: you've got spam & lots of it @ Aohell
Aohell doesn't pay their employees a living wage so its no surpirse an unethical employee sold the list. ( I'm not saying it was right )
Aohell is notorious THEMSELVES for selling or "renting" their subscribers information to 3rd parties.
Aohell blathers on about how they protect your privacy and its an outright lie.
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For a long time..now... I have tested (now and then) by a code name the integrity of various major companys "privacy policy"...
THERE IS NO INGEGRITY... OUT THERE...
various (probably about 70% or more) companys have "moles" in their staff that sell our email addys.. to 3rd-5th parties...!
wake up net surfers!!!
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