Website obtained my private email?

qvsr46ofgc792k

After a recommended bargain alert in the boards thread I visited vikingdirect.ie by just clicking on the link. The item in question was no longer available. So I navigated away from the page. That's it.

However for the last two days I have now been receiving emails from Viking direct. Can someone explain how they are doing this and is there something I can do from preventing this from happening in the future?

I use google chrome. I am not signed in to chrome however I usually have my gmail account signed in.

JustShon

The law states that they must provide an option to unsubscribe in any information / promotional emails. Look towards the bottom of the mail for a link / instructions on how to unsubscribe. If they don't have this in the email, then email them and tell them you want to unsubscribe from their mailing list and throw in that the lack of an unsubscribe option is illegal; just to give them some incentive to comply with your request.

Is that a typo in your first sentence or did you actually go to vikingdircet.ie? Not being smart but you might have visited a spam version of vikingdirect.ie?

I work for one of their competitors and as much as I'd like to have an opportunity to badmouth them, I visit their site regularly for price-checking etc and have had no problems with them lifting my email address.

Check the original link you used and see if there was anything unusual about the URL. Something added to the end of it or maybe something spelt wrongly in the URL that might indicate you didn't visit the real vikingdirect.ie

qvsr46ofgc792k

JustShon wrote: »

The law states that they must provide an option to unsubscribe in any information / promotional emails. Look towards the bottom of the mail for a link / instructions on how to unsubscribe. If they don't have this in the email, then email them and tell them you want to unsubscribe from their mailing list and throw in that the lack of an unsubscribe option is illegal; just to give them some incentive to comply with your request.

Is that a typo in your first sentence or did you actually go to vikingdircet.ie? Not being smart but you might have visited a spam version of vikingdirect.ie?

I work for one of their competitors and as much as I'd like to have an opportunity to badmouth them, I visit their site regularly for price-checking etc and have had no problems with them lifting my email address.

Check the original link you used and see if there was anything unusual about the URL. Something added to the end of it or maybe something spelt wrongly in the URL that might indicate you didn't visit the real vikingdirect.ie

That was a typo. It was the genuine site.

Yeah they have an unsubscribe feature but my issue is with how they obtained my email address in the first place.

testicle

I got the Viking emails too. I didn't visit their site though, but they have my email address from a transaction I had with them about 8 years ago.

I think a complaint to the DPC is required.

EdenStudios

That shouldn't happen or at least it shouldn't happen automatically.
The only possible scenario I can think of is that they manually checked their referrer logs, identified the source and then manually found your email address?

Have you ever purchased anything from the store in the past?

qvsr46ofgc792k

EdenStudios wrote: »

That shouldn't happen or at least it shouldn't happen automatically.
The only possible scenario I can think of is that they manually checked their referrer logs, identified the source and then manually found your email address?

Have you ever purchased anything from the store in the past?

Never.

And I done a search on my email just in case I forgot. But no never.

EdenStudios

Any chance you can root out the original bargain alert email?

qvsr46ofgc792k

EdenStudios wrote: »

Any chance you can root out the original bargain alert email?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=97671663

Kenny Logins

Looks like Monetate tracking cookies, they could have other sites that do know who you are.

qvsr46ofgc792k

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Looks like Monetate tracking cookies, they could have other sites that do know who you are.

Do you know how I could prevent something like this from happening again?

Kenny Logins

Ledger Clever Lockout wrote: »

Do you know how I could prevent something like this from happening again?

Adding entries to your hosts file on a PC can block unwanted cookies and trackers. This is one option, a list that covers hundreds of them -

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Just be aware that some other stuff won't work, RTÉ Player for example.

qvsr46ofgc792k

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Adding entries to your hosts file on a PC can block unwanted cookies and trackers. This is one option, a list that covers hundreds of them -

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Just be aware that some other stuff won't work, RTÉ Player for example.

Perfect Thank You. And out of curiosity would you know how they know my email address from that information?

Graham

Have a look at the Ghostery extension for your browser, it shows everything else that sneaks in when a web page loads and allow you to decide which ones to block.

Here's an example from earlier in the year: