Odd & Semi-Annoying Emails

J W Alexander · Post by **J W Alexander** » 19 Sep 2018 3:52 am

Not a security issue per se but recently discovered that some online sellers of various things I use can and have captured my "real" email address simply by my visiting their sites. Most notably when I've placed something in a cart--mostly to check shipping costs---when I leave the site within minutes I'll receive an email about my visit, begging me to come back and buy whatever I was viewing.

My response is to send an extremely vulgar and offensive email demanding to know how they captured my email address and to stop sending me such SPAM. It takes a few reply emails like that to stop the emails and I hate wasting my time but its super annoying and kinda worth the time spent.

How is this done on their end and more importantly how can I stop it from happening?

TIA

J W

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 19 Sep 2018 8:42 am

Train your spam filter by marking their emails as spam.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 19 Sep 2018 9:05 am

J.W.;
Evidently, your browser is leaking your logged in or saved email address, or adding it to the headers. This is a bad security situation. Most of the current browsers put privacy first after having endured a lot of flack for not doing so before.

Normally, a web browser transmits its User Agent, languages accepted/character encoding and other details that can geographically identify where you are logged in (or the proxy you are going through). Different web servers accept different headers for tracking purposes, especially when it comes to shopping carts. They do this to prevent fraud, as well as to scoop customer details.

The latest version of Firefox forces strong privacy by default. If you've been using some other browser, give Firefox (version 62 or newer) a try.

J W Alexander · Post by **J W Alexander** » 20 Sep 2018 4:13 am

Thanks for that brief education Wiz---fascinating and not too far above my head.

Is there any way to tweak Google's Chrome browser? That's worked well for me and if possible I'd like to keep it---old dawgs, etc etc.

J W

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 20 Sep 2018 8:12 am

J W Alexander wrote:Thanks for that brief education Wiz---fascinating and not too far above my head. :)

Is there any way to tweak Google's Chrome browser? That's worked well for me and if possible I'd like to keep it---old dawgs, etc etc. :)

J W

Yes. Don't log into Gmail on Chrome. If you are already logged in, log out. You can use the Windows 10 Mail app to do email. Otherwise, log out after checking for mail with Chrome.

J W Alexander · Post by **J W Alexander** » 22 Sep 2018 3:08 pm

Sorry for the late reply Wiz----I'll give your suggestion a try naturally.

Thanks again!

J W

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 28 Sep 2018 7:06 am

I didn't realize until the other night (60 Minutes on TV) what a monopoly Google is, to the extent of some experts calling their activities illegal.
Of course ya'll already know that despite what Google says about valuing fair use and security, their links are their picks, and everyone else's gets buried to page 4,
where nobody goes. That's enough for me to switch, even to the extent of losing my Doctor Who 'Crack in Time and Space' home page.

Just an aside--it seems that there isn't as much traffic in the Computers section of the Forum as there used to be.
Has Windows 10 made that much of a difference? Naw, I'm just kidding ya.
Whatever the stars are doing sure makes your job easier, Wiz. I hope you don't miss us too much.