People requesting your email

[will king]

Hi. I have had several requests for my email, most of which I know

who requested it by their name or by the user actually emailing me.

As you may know if someone requests your email, photo.net sends you

an email letting you know who requested it. Well, there were 3

different people who requested my email, who I cannot find in the

Search option by either name or email. How can this be? And doesn't

it possibly create a security concern? Is there another way I can

find out which photo.net user(s) requested my email?

 

Will

[cappoldt]

I've had some funny business lately too - requests from a fresh account with no posts, no rates, no nothing. Then, I received no mail. I reported it to Abuse, who replied, "Certainly no abuse at this time."

[afs760bf]

You have to submit photographic evidence of bruises for it to be considered abuse.

[bobatkins]

Let me know the names of the people who requested your email address that you can't find in the Member Directory. Don't post any email addresses here though.

 

It should be impossible for anyone not registered with photo.net to request your email. If you don't believe me, logout and try it.

 

If someone has found a way around this, then Brian needs to know (unless he already knows and is working on it!).

 

It's not abuse if a new user with no posts requests your email. It's 99.99% likely to be abuse if that same user requests a bunch of email addresses.

[will king]

Yann Trann and MARJAN KESHAVARZI. Thanks Bob.

[bobatkins]

They are both registered photo.net users.

 

Look in the member directory.

[will king]

Okay, I was able to find them that way. I was using the search option. I noticed that both of these users are brand new with nothing to their profile. No rates, no, critiques, no photos. Just a bit fishing. Has something like this been reported before?

[bobatkins]

I'm sure it has.

 

I'm also sure Brian keeps an eye on email requests and I'm sure that anyone requesting more than a normal number of email adresses will raise a flag and be looked at carefully.

[mottershead]

People frequently create accounts on photo.net specifically for the purpose of finding out the email addresses of members. For example, several times per week, we receive queries from advertising agencies, magazine editors, photo editors, etc, asking for the contact information for photographers so they can purchase rights to the photos. Most of the time we tell them that we don't represent the photographers, but that if they sign up as members they can obtain the contact information of other members. If it is someone on a deadline, and we are pretty sure they authentic, we will just go ahead and give them the email address.

 

We keep careful track of who is requesting the addresses of whom, and this ability is turned off when things look suspicious.

[will king]

Thanks for the explaination Brian.

[cappoldt]

Yes, thanks Brian - that's a bit more thorough of an explanation.

 

Bob, figured as it was an oddity reporting it to Abuse was due diligence just in case.

 

Anyway, I'm sure Yann Trann of Dog Whisker magazine or Marjan Keshavarzi of Bird Tail Monthly will be writing any time...hey how much should I charge 'em?! ;)

[mdcarma]

You should charge a paw and a half, and enough feathers to tickle your fancy.

[will king]

I just had another request for my email from a Norman Carnick. Looked him up in the member dir and there are 2, one who has been a membr since 2001, with a completely empty profile and the other with a few photos that I have never seen before and I haven't rated his photos. What gives? They're requesting emails and not emailing me. Hate to ask anybody to do any extra work, but can someone investigate this?

[mottershead]

You'll need to contact the PBI, the photo.net Bureau of Investigation, our crack team of investigators for handling these type of queries. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost their phone number.

[bobatkins]

I'll do it, but there's a $100 fee for filing the paperwork...

 

BTW I think it's now called the Ph.B.I.

 

If it really bugs you, request THEIR email and write to them asking why they are requesting YOUR email.

[cappoldt]

I'm simply gonna change my email contact to info@marykay.com . . .that'll fix 'em.

 

Will, change yours to recipes@ilovecheese.com

[robert x]

Hey Will - I am very tempted to request your email address and then not email you for a day or two (joking)

 

On a similar theme though, I saw a very nice photo posted in the "No Words" from a user here and wanted to look at his portfolio - yet no portfolio exists for him and I can't request his email address to tell him how much I liked it and asking where I could see more. Maybe you can disable the "request email" link on your page too ?

[johncrosley]

I note I recently posted the e-mail address of a person who had been distributing software spam to me, and several members had said they received e-mail from that same 'member' or address. I watch carefully for anyone who requests my e-mail address who doesn't follow up promptly with a message to me -- sometimes it's just oversight on their part, and other times it's someone building a targeted 'spam' list, and a particularly effective one, since as users we can't effectively eliminate as 'spam' mail coming from Photo.net as a sender without eliminating e-mail from members and possible future friends.

 

It's important that Administration keep careful watch over and block any account that comes through Photo.net that seems to be 'spam' related (I hope this doesn't repeat my earlier post too much). ('Superfluity does not vitiate' is a legal term -- too much is better than too little, sometimes).

 

John (Crosley)

[will king]

Bob, I have emailed these "users" and inquired to why they have requested my email and have not received any responses.