In a previous posting of a similar name, I talked about a company, LetsTalk.com and how a unique email address I had created for use with dealing with this company had been leaked somehow, and I was receiving many spam messages from them.

As a statistic, I recall that I counted an average of over 400 blocked spam delivery attempts to that email address alone per day over a 4 day period.

I contacted LetsTalk.com through their communications web page. And got nothing. So after a week, I contacted TRUSTe.org per LetsTalk.com's privacy statement and filed a complaint. Here's how things went:

TRUSTe made an initial return contact within 24 hours asking me if I had been infected by a virus/trojan/malicious website. I responded that since I use a Mac, there are no known malicious viruses circulating for it, that most Malware doesn't work on Macs, and I have standard NAT and firewall security. I will admit it's not bulletproof, but, my point to TRUSTe was if my system had been compromised, I should have leaked the hundred or so other unique email addresses as well, and all those were silent. TRUSTe agreed and forwarded my complaint to LetsTalk.com

TRUSTe enforces responses times and acts as a facilitator for the whole complaint process, and after about 10 days (and me sending in logs, spam samples caught in my spam filter, etc.) LetsTalk.com delivered a report where they showed that a third party they had hired to scrub their advertising email lists had leaked out all the email addresses to be scrubbed.

So, on one hand, it's bad that the info leaked. But on the other hand, they did find the source (or so I believe since the spamming has stopped), and they indicated it was email addresses only. No other information reportedly leaked.

LetsTalk.com was responsive, asked appropriate questions, and at all times seemed interested in resolving the complaint. Refreshing and appreciated. TRUSTe's system also appears to have worked well - less than 2 weeks to resolution once I contacted them.

Maybe there's hope yet for the internet...

Tags: Technology

It hasn't even been two weeks since you left us, but we're still thinking of you on your birthday. We miss you dad.