ColR1948 Posted March 4, 2021 Share Posted March 4, 2021 Recently I've been getting lots of junk mail in with what I call my usual ordinary mail, I looked it up and it seems lots more who use Gmail are also getting it. Some think it has happened from a recent update but I'm not sure. What did cross my mind was those popups you get blocking a screen asking you to agree to cookies etc before you can see anything on the screen, I must admit I do sometime just click to agree, but are they passing on your details, and/or has some website sold my email on? Col. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loki Posted March 4, 2021 Share Posted March 4, 2021 When it comes to spam, it is usually hard to know exactly where they got your address from, and they are always looking for ways to get around spam filters too. With the number of data breaches over the years it is quite likely your address has been leaked online, rather than sold. And even if you do limit it's use to just family and friends, if one them had an account breach, your address could have been leaked that way too. One way to see if any of your accounts have been leaked is to use the "have i been pwned?" site. They compile the leaked data they find on the internet and can tell you if your email address shows up anywhere. https://haveibeenpwned.com Firefox has a service that uses the above site's data to monitor and report breaches that included your account. https://monitor.firefox.com One trick you can use with Gmail accounts is to use an alias when signing up for accounts. This way you can more easily trace where the spammer got the address. Although it's still hard to tell whether the company sold your data, or it was leaked or hacked. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/gmail-address-tricks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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