This forum and privacy

I just googled my email address and every post I ever made on here comes up. Also the amount of spam in my email quadrupled since being on here. I now need to change my email because I do not want everyone in the world to be able to easily see what I say on this forum. This forum should be a safe place to express yourself. What if i went for a job and they googled me? Or I met a partner? It is reasonable to say that I would rather some people not know that I am a member of a forum for lonely people and how I express myself on there.

A few more privacy measures please?

The internet is a hacker/stalker's paradise, anyone who wants to find someone and has a basic understanding of the internet will be able to do so. Most people have more than one email address for different purposes, I have one for work, one for here, one for bills, and a few others.
It's mostly on you to make sure you take the necessary measures to ensure that those you don't want to find you, won't...not the forum's. If you use one email for everything, anyone can find anything on you.

I'm a moderator, and I don't even have access to your email address. How did you manage to get in that mess?



Edit: Also I get no spam at the email address I use for the forum.

I've googled the email address I use here and don't get a thing. Perhaps your email address is too similar to your username.

Doubt The Rabbit said:

I've googled the email address I use here and don't get a thing.

Click to expand...

I got nothing as well.

Doubt The Rabbit said:

.... Perhaps your email address is too similar to your username.

Click to expand...

That would be my guess. A username should pull up all kinds of posts unless it is something really common.

I too get nothing when i google my email address.

Nothing here, either. *starts breathing again*

I don't believe it Cumulus, I googled mine and it says for a certain fee anyone can access all my email for $1.95 for a year and then more for more years!
I am having a computer specialist check into it. I will get back to you in a PM!

I googled mine. A bunch of arabic websites come up.

I google searched my email address and a thing came up saying you could find anyone's Hotmail email address and get their emails and all their private information for $1.95 for a year. I was quite nervous so I did what I said in my above post, asked my my friend who is a computer specialist, who eats, sleeps, drinks and breathes computers. We are extremely close friends and I trust him implicitly. I even gave him my password so he can "take over" my computer whenever I have a problem so he can fix it or explain it to me. He lives in another State now, but visits here once in a while.

He wrote this in an email back to me:

"It is just an ad. Your information is safe. If everyone's information was available for $1.95, do you think that 300 million people around the world would use it. Read Hotmail's privacy policy."

Hotmail is what I use for email. I used to use AOL, but gave it up. I Google searched the old email address and something similar came up.

I am not going to go into a panic over this and I don't think anyone else here should either. I am sure my friend knows what he is talking about!

Let us know how it turns out wishingwell.

Minus said:

Doubt The Rabbit said:

.... Perhaps your email address is too similar to your username.

Click to expand...

That would be my guess. A username should pull up all kinds of posts unless it is something really common.

I too get nothing when i google my email address.

Click to expand...

Is it possible to change ones username on here so all past posts change to the new name?

Well there is a thread here entitled: "let's make a list of email addresses" where some genius in this forum posted his email address nakedly and wanted others to follow. That thread made it to atleast six pages, and will likely grow since I mentioned it again. You are the only one that seems to have this problem in this thread james, probably because YOU revealed YOUR email address on this forum(like most the people in the thread I cite). There is no need to do this because the Mybb software of this forum has a facility that allows you to email other users. Try to find where you revealed your email addy and edit it out. If you cannot edit a post that old, message a mod to do it for you. I googled my email address and the only thing that comes up is from two ******* websites reposting my email address from a Usenet/Google Groups archived post without protection(like Google Groups uses).

Tip: In my email account I use a false pen name, so Gmail, the government, and other companies have a harder time to associate my real name with my email activities.

cumulus.james said:

Minus said:

Doubt The Rabbit said:

.... Perhaps your email address is too similar to your username.

Click to expand...

That would be my guess. A username should pull up all kinds of posts unless it is something really common.

I too get nothing when i google my email address.

Click to expand...

Is it possible to change ones username on here so all past posts change to the new name?

Click to expand...

Yes. But the search engines will still find this forum for a while after. Still worth doing, though, I think.

In future, I'd say it would be best to use a second email address for forums such as these.

I have so many email addresses I have lost count, and yes if you do not want to be noticed around the internet...the best thing to do would keep your personal email address and your forum email address separate. It isn't too complicated to go and setup another account.

And yes, if your username is searched and that is what it is on this forum then most likely it will show up if ANY of the search engines have indexed this website, which they have because otherwise no one would be able to find it! Of course if you do not want your info associated with your username you should do your best to not make it visible, enable options such as "Hide email address" in your profile. And I do know for privacy reasons, on vbulletin anyways (ive never operated phpBB forums) that the ONLY person that can see your email address are the administrators if you have dont show email address publicly enabled, it wont even be indexed by google.

I know I have at least 7 email accounts (I dont use all of them anymore but that's how many I have I think).

The good old, electronic foot print. Anyone who wants to spend hours searching the net for what i've posted online has WAYYYY too much time on their hands.

zaphodity said:

The good old, electronic foot print. Anyone who wants to spend hours searching the net for what i've posted online has WAYYYY too much time on their hands.

Click to expand...

It's not that - I did not realize and used my main email account here so if anyone who has my email address can Google it and see all my posts on here. In this country we are being spy'd on left right and centre. If you go for a job they Google you and spy on your Facebook.

But I personally am very uncomfortable with all this tracking and spying on people anyway. If I followed you round with a video camera all day everyday documenting every move you make then selling that onto people you would get a tad pissed off. Essentially that is what is happening to you online, because you don't see it people seem to not care.

If you learned by accident I had been secretly filming your whole life, I had everything you had said and done documented how creeped out would you be?

Never Googled my Email Address before. Or anyone else for that matter!

Here goes though..

Get a ton of stuff on my email. But it's trivial stuff. I'm not worried :]

If someone wants to pay $3.95 to see any of the information I have posted on-line, my music, videos, pictures, etc., they are going to be very disappointed that they wasted 4 bucks. I don't put anything on my computer that I would care if the world knew.

This is why you use a throwaway email address, one with a fake name. It throws off the spammers.