Do spammers have access to your email? They get it from you. No, not directly. After you sign up for a service or app and willingly provide your email address to confirm your new account, that service or app sells your email address to marketers who now have knowledge of the services and apps you are interested in.
It’s a risky tactic that’s typical of the big data era we’re in right now, and it might even be against the law in some places. However, since they aren’t the ones directly spamming you, companies get away with it, and as a result, you frequently have no way of knowing which provider sold your data.
Identifying the Data Sellers
Next time you create an account on a website or app, add a + sign and a special identification code just after your user name but before the @ sign.
Ideally, utilize the app’s name to make it simpler to identify the offender. If you create a TikTok account with
username+tiktok@gmail.com and soon after begin receiving numerous spam emails with that address as the recipient. You will be aware that TikTok sold your email address – think of it as a marked bill.
This works because Gmail ignores anything following a + sign-in email address while still delivering the emails. So, when you receive a spam message, check the Sender field.
You might encounter a problem where the service you’re registering for prevents you from entering a + symbol in the email field. Adding a period somewhere in your user name will work as a solution in that situation. Gmail completely disregards any periods in user names and sends the email as if they weren’t there, just like the + symbol does.
