Fusion Digital

[sweetdbt]

A few weeks ago I started getting Email advertisements in the bulk mail of my yahoo account (not my primary email). They are ads for a variety of products and events, all Dominican, ranging from commercial real estate to bachata concerts. The name of the marketing company, Fusion Digital, is displayed on each ad. Just curious to know if anyone else is getting these, or knows anything about the source.

They are a nuisance at worst, and some have actually been of interest. None of the usaul spam stuff (Viagra, etc.), and no indication of anything sinister such as virus or adware attached. I'm just curious as to how they got my address, or knew I had any association with the DR. I don't recall ever giving this email address to anyone there.

 

[quejeyoke]

Once you register your email address at any website, they do as they please with your email address. A lot but not all websites gather everybody's email addresses and sell them to spam companies so they can send you tons of spam. I suggest you get a new email address and only use it to comunicate with people you know so you can see how how inbox spam dwindles. But, for example, yahoo will still send you their yahoo branded spam to your inbox. But that's a small price to pay for a 250MB inbox don't you think?

 

[sweetdbt]

Once you register your email address at any website, they do as they please with your email address. A lot but not all websites gather everybody's email addresses and sell them to spam companies so they can send you tons of spam. I suggest you get a new email address and only use it to comunicate with people you know so you can see how how inbox spam dwindles. But, for example, yahoo will still send you their yahoo branded spam to your inbox. But that's a small price to pay for a 250MB inbox don't you think?

It's really not enough of a problem to change addresses; no more than 1 or 2 a day, and they are diverted to the bulk mail. I suspect it is a result of a spyware infestation a had a while back, which I have hopefully corrected. What's interesting is that, other than the occasional ad for medications, these are the only spam I get. It's likely that the spyware detected my activity on DR sites and triggered a notice to the Fusion Digital people that I am a prospective customer. I was just curious to know if other DR1 members have been receiving them.

 

[Chris]

Just today I got spam from Fusion Digital. Where on earth could they have gotten an e-mail address for me? The "to address" line is to "undisclosed participants", so I cannot even see if this is a harvested e-mail address to a webmaster address on some site that I could be responsible for. Although the sites that I'm involved in, use methods to stop harvesting the webmaster@ e-mail address. I'm dumbfounded. I have no spyware...

 

[Robert]

Welcome to the Internet. We have harvesters constantly crawling all over DR1. I block as many as I can, but it's a tedious task!
We are an obvious target being the highest profile DR related site on the web.

They cannot harvest your address via this board as it's blind.
All our email is Mac (Apple) based so we suffer no spyware or virus issues.

I get people asking me often if we sell our lists, I always send them the standard reply. Yes, US$25 per opt-in address or US$500,000 for the entire list.
They soon get the message

My guess is addresses have been harvested via other peoples sites, address books etc.

 

[Chris]

So, who in the DR has my e-mail address and is infested with spyware, or harvesting monsters?

 

[Robert]

So, who in the DR has my e-mail address and is infested with spyware, or harvesting monsters?

Your guess is as good as mine.

We average around 100 spam emails an hour here at DR1.
Fortunantly we clean most of it up on the server before we ever see it.
What makes it past SpamAssasin, usually get's tagged locally.

The joys of runing a server and large mailing list

 

[Chris]

Yes, we also have all the latest and greatest running and it seldom that spam actually reaches an inbox. We deal with enormous quantities of spam at one of our larger customers (you may know who this is), but a very small percentage gets through to a legit e-mail box. That is why I was so surprised today... and then remembering this thread on DR1.... And I think this may be a 'hand-done' job... reading from the "to" mailing list. The modern mailing lists have just the e-mail address and not the list.

Folks, if you're running up to date virus protection and feel yourselves quite 'virtuous', please add regular spyware checks to your personal computers. Spybot is excellent for home use, and it is free. http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

It will save the rest of us from dealing with spam... (some of the time)