I am seeing unsolicited e-mails lately, saying

Hi <my real name>
I found your email address on the internet as a member of Everyone's Welcome.

Is my personal info being sold? How can I opt out of this?

At the very least, my e-mail address and real identity is compromised. Is other information also being sold?

I've not gotten emails generated from this site--------so far!

I haven't gotten any unwanted emails from this site either(YET!!!!) and I'll keep my fingers crossed that it continues this to be way!!

You can block unwanted spam mail with most programs. I haven't gotten anything generated by this site. I did get some from facebook and a couple of others, but most of the junk I get is stuff I sign up for but don't have time to read.

Don't forget that this is a public forum, anyone on the web can access this board. Only registered can post. So that does leave us open to unsolicited spam and other "stuff".

neither have I. Never

All true ... except this person is talking about emails ... our email addy is not public on here, UNLESS you post it yourself, and share it with others.

The PM is set up to help us avoid that risk. So if you give your email, that's your choice, and nothing to blame this site for.

I'm not clear why you think it's generated from this site...

MoonPi, what is 'Everyone's Welcome'? I've never heard of it.

Everybody's welcome is the online name for the Quilt Guild generated here way back when (2007). http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-3258-1.htm

Shadow Dancer made the block and Chele designed the card. It was a big topic of chat conversation at the time. Since there is no guild outside of this board that I am part of, it has to come from here.

what bothers me more is access to my name and e-mail address. I am careful to read rules before joining a site, and never saw anything indicating my personal information would be sold. I do not give that out unless I have a reason to.

I'm not a member of "Everyone's Welcome".

I don't think I got any because of this site. But, I found when I did the Shop Hop, I started getting plenty of emails from all the shops even though I didn't sign up or register with any of them.

That's exactly what I was going to share.

What Bonbonary said...

I stand corrected.:)

I also agree with bonbonary and becka. I get a bunch from the fab shop hop and quilting is murder, but nothing generated here. I am not a member of "Everyone's Welcome".
Sue

I wrote to the sender to ask where they got my info. No fab shop hop store would associate me with any guild, and I doubt they would have access to my real name.

Ok, I remember that now. I know how closely you guard your personal info, so that really surprises me. Have you checked the Privacy Policies here to see if they changed any with the new ownership? Maybe ask Admin directly?

Is it possible that someone you emailed (or that emailed you) in regards to that guild had their email highjacked?

I get hit up by Facebook when people let FB pull in their contact list from their email. Then FB solicits me to join so I can be friends with them. The thing is, I have a FB account through another email, so I can tell when the "invitation" is phishing.

I have found that when searching other commercial sites that leave cookies on my computer, the ads that pop up here pertain to where I've searched/shopped. I don't see that as this forum's fault, though, it's all part of how other sites track where you go and keep hounding you with advertising.

For what it's worth, I agree that it's important to keep one's data private. This data mining is a source of big income for websites, and I don't like being used. But I have never felt used by this board.

Just a QB member and definitely no extra spam here...

I thought the board was private but have found posts on the web when looking up quilt subjects.
So be careful what you post it goes out to the world.
email is a different matter and some sites can be less than safe to email.

I am super careful about this privacy issue and so far so good. I am on this forum too much, so if they were gonna "get" me, it would have happened by now. LOL!
Note: My time is never wasted here. I have saved a bundle and garnered some wonderful ideas as well as timesavers!
Just MHO. . .

My personal email was hacked. I fixed it with a password change and by logging off when I wasn't actually reading my mail. The only place I have let my email be known is in personal messages here. So it is not out of the question in my opinion.

Most of this stuff comes from people's email which has been hacked. The contacts are copied and sent all kinds of stuff.

Do you know the sender? Never open an email from someone you do not know. Delete it immediately, before opening.

If you do not know the sender but reply back, they now have confirmation that yours is a working email address.

If you do know the sender, advise them their email has been ompromised.

And as much as I know this stuff (I work with computers for a living) I myself was caught with a bogus e mail sent from one of my son's old email addresses, which he no longer uses.

Also: The moderators advise you NOT to put perosnal information in your posts for the world to see.

If you have email your info is easy to find and any spammer with a 'spider' can 'web' any email ever posted online, private or not. emails are like phone numbers and addresses. If ever listed in a directory once, it's available to find.

Hubby is an IT guy, and from what he can tell, my personal info is safe at this site as long as I do not post it.

This is a private board, but that doesn't make it "private" as far as nobody being able to read it but us. So, yes, all your posts on the open forum are accessible on the Internet. Your PM's are not, though.

I watched a show on A&E about computer hackers. Professional spammers/hackers (which can be a bored teenager) have programs that most business IT depts have no clue about. The FBI has to make deals with hackers just to learn their methods. Hackers can make big money selling email and name lists to internet spammers.

Actually - that is not a given - there are many ways in which your email account can be hijacked. Also, these online groups might not have sold your info - but been hacked as well.

My guess is that the PM's here are safer than using some online email accounts such as Gmail and Yahoo. I have several email accounts - one of which I use for online forums, another for FB, another for junk sign ups and one for bills and friends.