Are you claiming they're being used as spambot bait -- or do you have some other conspiracy in mind? Either way, the idea is (as I wrote before) ridiculous.

An unsolicited email, is an unsolicited email. Period.

It makes no difference if it is an advertisement for viagra, or a warning from someone who thinks he knows what is best for everyone else. (Those selling the viagra think they know what is best for you too. They just have your best interests in mind...)

I find it ironic that you are choosing to use the very same tactic, spam, to 'help' others avoid being spammed.

Seems to defeat your purpose doesn't it? To spam people to warn them about the risk of spam...

JD

It is tiresome arguing with the likes of Paul G Taylor, who seems to see conspiracies everywhere...

An unsubstantiated claim. It is your opinion that it is intentional, and done with malice.
Friends are always welcome to send me an email. Total strangers, from an internet message board, with a personal axe to grind, are not. And if they do, it's spam.
Again, exactly what you are planning to do.

JD

For the record, I did not and do not imagine any conspiracy here. That issue was rasied by some else, in contention with the white-wash effort that is going on here.

The issue is, that, contrary to all good practice and advice, the private and formerly secure information that people are submitting in all good faith, is being revealed to the whole world, particularly search-bots and hence, by implication, to the spammers' scrapers which will have ready access to them, to add them to their lists of addresses used both to spam and then on-sell to other spammers, indefinitely.

I do not believe that anyone would have consciously and deliberately chosen to do that themselves, but it has come about, indirectly, due to the way that the transition from CNR Warehouse to CNR.com was carried out.

Specifically, the email address, which used to be the secure log-in identity for the CNR Warehouse, has been carried over as the default for the unsecure log-in to CNR.com. Then, as a secondary, unintended effect, when that person subsequently joins the community at 'community.cnr.com', their log-in identity is included in the URL of their Profile at http://community.cnr.com/people.

I was appalled when I discovered this fact after doing a Google search on my email address. I immediately reported this discovery here and on the Freespire forums and asked for it to be redressed. So far, I have had an acknoledgement from Xandros that the problem exists, that it is not an intended situation and that they would do something to correct this situation. That was nearly two months ago. To date nothing has changed and folks are still signing up to the forums here and having their email address then revealed to the world.

What I have proposed is that Xandros, the new owners of CNR.com and the forums, should email those affected so that they can take remedial action themselves, pending a change to the web page to prevent the recurrence of this problem. In the case where they fail to do so, within reasonable time-frame, I have said that I would do so myself. For that I am being accused of being a Spammer myself. Oh well, shoot the messenger if you do not like the message!