On 2006-07-29, Thomas <tomwin...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've also just been spammed at my Ameritrade-only (unique, never-used-
elsewhere) address.  This follows a similar barrage of spam to that address
a week or so ago.  In both cases the spam I've received to that address
has been stock-related.  So I'd agree that Ameritrade is leaking addresses.

I can't be sure if that's intentional or a result of technical incompetence.
However, as someone mentioned in the December thread on this same topic,
Ameritrade's privacy policy reserves to them the right to share "non-public
personal information" with anyone at all.  They have an opt out for that,
and I always scour web sites for privacy information, opt-outs, and mailing
list unsubscriptions, so I would almost certainly have found that one.
But corporations like Ameritrade will often add a new opt-out (default to
opt-in, of course) without mentioning it--and you don't find out about it
until they've already used it against you.

So my presumption is that they simply sold my address, and yours, and
presumably many others as well.

I've done something similar: changed to a date-stamped address with various
pseudo-random stuff in it.  Certainly nothing a brute force email generator
would ever stumble across.  I'm debating now whether to write to the SEC's
enforcem...@sec.gov address immediately, or hold off until this new address
gets spammed.

I haven't bothered contacting Ameritrade and won't, since I won't add the
insult of wasting hours of my time to the injury of them sharing my address
with spammers; that time can be more profitably spent searching for a new
online broker who doesn't sell personal information.

- John