04-21-2009, 08:35 PM
I have never gone to that extent with a retailer but once Macworld/IDG sold/had-stolen a unique email address to spammers within two weeks after I registered for MWSF. I got junk to that address for at least 2 more years after that.
After that much time it might not be the retailer doing it on purpose. It might be someone bought a surplus computer and got the data off an old hard drive. I have heard of people doing that looking for credit card data.
It could also be that someone just came up with a dictionary attack that finally swept up that address. Can you check if other similar email addresses were attempted, or does you spam filter dump them without any record?
After that much time it might not be the retailer doing it on purpose. It might be someone bought a surplus computer and got the data off an old hard drive. I have heard of people doing that looking for credit card data.
It could also be that someone just came up with a dictionary attack that finally swept up that address. Can you check if other similar email addresses were attempted, or does you spam filter dump them without any record?