YoName as a possible spam resource
I read about a new site called YoName, which is a search engine for people, meaning it only searches social networking sites, such as LinkedIn.
As any curious person, I tried searching myself there, by my name and by my mail address.
I was shocked to find this mail from the site: “YO. Someone is searching for you on yoName.com”
The content of the message notified me I was searched, advertised the site, and had this text:
“This is a one-time email sent to you from yoName.com. Someone searched for your email address using yoName and while yoName is a free service, it’s also anonymous. To unsubscribe from future emails from yoName, click here.“
Unsubscribe? but I never subscribed, I just entered a search!
Receiving unsolicited advertisement (spam) from the site just because someone else searched your mail address is bad enough.
But now I know my mail is in their database:
I tried entering the search again, and got no further mails, meaning they checked the search result against a database of previous searches.
Seems to me this site is just waiting for a spammer to crack it and retrieve all the mails.
Category: Uncategorized
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:51 pm
I actually have emailed YoName at support@yoname.com a few times with some questions and suggestions. I have been using the site frequently since I have been meeting people online (dating). YoName has been very responsive and seems very legit.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:55 am
They may be legit, but I can’t condone sending spam to someone just because I entered his/her mail in their search, and the same goes for harvesting those mail addresses.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:14 am
From my limited knowledge about CAN-SPAM they seem to be in complaince. Anyway, I found the site from getting such an email and I use it all the time; so no complaints here…