Recently on my blog a commentator asked me if I sell their email. They also said since they started putting in their email into forms to get free stuff around the internet they started getting a TON of spam.
This is a great question and I am really glad it was brought up.
First of all... No I do not sell or share your information with anyone and never will. But lets be honest... how would you possibly know if I did? (I will answer that in a bit)
Second of all DUH. People are giving you free stuff and collecting your email BECAUSE they are going to email you and try to sell you something.... eventually.... But first they want to build a "relationship" with you and show you how smart they are by giving away stuff.
Now with 99% of the junk out there I would say:
- The free stuff is not worth giving up your email
- They probably do sell your email
In the last year I have endorsed 2 products. Andy Jenkins Video Boss and right now Frank Kerns List Control. Like me they have been building their brand and relationship with their readers for years and... like me... they are not about to ruin that by doing something stupid so I trust them and am telling you that you can trust them also (but again how do you really know?).
These guys are my friends and also the stuff they have given away is unreal. And unlike others there stuff is a very limited time AND its sells out very fast.
Sidenote: If you have not downloaded Kern's latest giveaway you need to. The software and techniques he uses is amazing. Frank told me he paid over $10,000 to have it developed and after I downloaded it I can see why.
But back to the question at hand.
How do I know if someone is selling my email address?
Answer: You create a new email address for each thing you opt into.
Sounds complicated right? Well its not. Most email systems will let you use the + symbol as a seperator and you can append whatever after that to track that email.
For instance lets say your email was james@gmail.com and you wanted to go grab this free software from Kern and see what all the hubub was about.
Just use the email of james+listcontrol@gmail.com for your email.
Gmail, and most other email providers, will ignore the + symbol and anything that comes after it and you still get the email. Try it out... its pretty cool.
I use this trick to:
1) Know of people are selling my email
2) If they are I can easily filter it out based on the address and send it straight to the trash.
So now you know FOR SURE if someone IS selling your email.
