Almost Half Of Spam Bugged

From Here

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Up to 50 percent of all spam sent in the last year came with hidden HTML code that spammers embedded in their messages in an effort to fine-tune their distribution lists and send out even more junk e-mail.

When a user opens or even previews an message containing a spam beacon, it signals the spammer, validating the address as live and helping spammers separate the "good" addresses from the "bad."

"Millions of users are unaware that spammers have the ability to track when they view and open their e-mail," said Scott Chasin, the chief technology officer of MX Logic, in a statement. "This reinforces the fact that spammers are using increasingly deceptive tools to invade end users' privacy and harvest valid email addresses."

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Even more 'good' news about spam (sic).

Moxnix,

Thanks for the post. Just to reaffirm what you said, I found out the hard way. I only clicked on a couple of them awhile back and that was all it took. That action did verify that the email address was active, and the flood gates were opened. Now I get about 15 a day just for penis and breast enlargements. Really folks I don't need either! And a whole bunch more like: your prize is waiting, email without a subject line, subject lines that say "none", etc., etc. So after cleaning it out again and again and resetting the filters, I just said the heck with it and started new email accounts.