What info can be gathered from just an email address?

heatblocker10

New Member
I was wondering what info, if any, can be gathered from just a person's email address. For example, if one person sends an email to a stranger, what can the stranger find out about that person based on just their email address? Any way the stranger could find personal info about who sent it? I know there is an option to hide any sensitive info in emails, but is there any way to still gather sensitive info? I imagine that there isn't really anything a person can learn from just an email address otherwise a lot of keyboard warriors would be in trouble! :eek: We are starting a new company and just want to verify that no personal info can be gained from an email that is sent out and I'm talking about a plain email address that doesn't show the company name, person's name. etc. Thanks for your help!
 
You cannot get anything from just the address itself but there is much trace information to be found in the SMTP header - try googling it.
 
A hotmail address trace will give a tonne of data that a tafe.nsw.edu won't... the end user decides how much stuff they want to tell things like facebook about them selves and yes that info is allways out there until the end of time. In much the same way as a tatoo that sounds like a good idea at age 15 is a point of issue at age 40.
 
Thank you for the responses! Also, is it possible for the sender of the email to see if I've opened the email? For example, we get a lot of commercial emails and we're curious if they can be notified that we've opened the email in the same way that iphones show that the other user has seen your text (although the end user also has to have an iphone.) I'd imagine that this would violate a privacy policy, but knowing the internet, I'm not sure privacy even means anything anymore! o_O We use Ymail for our business.
 
Since we are discussing security, we should also take in consideration the security of others, we do all hang in the same chain, don't we?

I'd suggest you take a respectful attitude towards your [potential] customers, and just add a link to the post, I read this. Go preaching, I do it again?

I personally dislike all sorts of automated functions, since what they are after, is only my wallet. And for you, the more you have of automated stuff, the more vulnerable you will be yourself. Take care of your customers, and they will take care of you; take care of yourself, and you will be able to take care of your customers.

In a natural creek water goes downwards, only, but in the IT creek it may go upwards too.
 
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What we don't want is for these companies sending advertising emails to know we've opened them (which may let them know they've reached the person they were after.) We are trying to avoid being put on a 'list' of people that are sent these mass advertising emails and what not. We get blasted by enough telemarketers, phishing businesses and robot messages as it is. The last thing we want is to be receiving emails from these companies, too. So the reason I ask is for our privacy from such companies. I'm not talking about potential customers, I'm talking about the typical sales calls that no business wants to deal with. Nine times out of ten, these companies are just trying to get info on the people here, such as the owner, so they can turn around and sell that information to another company that will use it to send us a bunch of junk mail and messages. There are no limits to what these companies will say in an effort to obtain information about the people working here and we are doing what we can to eliminate or at least drastically decrease the number of calls and messages we receive from such companies. So, I'm trying to verify if it's possible for the sender to see that we have opened the email, so that we may take necessary steps to establish our privacy from such companies.
 
So, I'm trying to verify if it's possible for the sender to see that we have opened the email,

Yes... most email software sends the sender a "mail opened" message as part of the basic mailto program and yes you can block this but it's best practice to do it on a per-sender list not a 'everyone gets blocked' as that will slow your email sever down.

Phone spam is a fact of the times, a seller can have poor people sit on their phones ringing people all day long and will be happy to do so because it works... even if only one morron per-day says "yes, here are my details"... it makes money for them.
 
Very sorry, heatblocker, I apologize. I got it all wrong, I took it like you wanted to check those who receive your mails. I thought about deleting my post, but reading it again, it's not really that bad. You just need to take the other side of the coin.

Anyways, :redface:
 
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