No Surprise: Spammers Still Harvesting Email Addresses

Not surprisingly, spammers continue to harvest email addresses, a new study by the Federal Trade Commission found. However, the good news from the study is that internet service providers’ anti-spam technologies are capable of blocking spam, the report said.

The report found that where consumers take a pro-active approach by “masking” their email addresses, the results can be dramatic. For example, the FTC study found that after five weeks, four unmasked email address received 6,400 pieces of spam while the four masked address received only one piece of spam. To mask an email address, a person puts spaces between the parts of the address and spells out at and dot. For example, johndoe@spam.com in its masked form is john doe at spam dot com.

To conduct the study, the FTC created 150 new email accounts. One third of the accounts were placed with an ISP with no spam filters, one third were placed with an ISP with a filter and one third were placed on message boards, blogs and chat rooms. The study found that spammers prefer web sites for harvesting. The study is entitled “Email Address Harvesting and the Effectiveness of Anti-Spam Filters.” It was issued by the FTC on November 28, 2005.