Some tips to protect your info from other forums

Evan Burck said:
did anyone get a welcome email from here? i don't think i set that up. i probably should
Click to expand...
Meh ... websites and emails is now a touchy subject so I wouldn't bother setting anything up that sends an email from the site.
 
GAT said:
Meh ... websites and emails is now a touchy subject so I wouldn't bother setting anything up that sends an email from the site.
Click to expand...
yeah, i meant that I wanted to make sure I wasn't unknowingly spamming anyone.
 
dflett68 said:
i sent a request for deletion to the address that mike the admin provided. took a few days and then they came back and said "Further to your request below, we have anonymized your WashingtonFlyFishing.com profile and unsubscribed you from the website".

i pointed out that my wish was to be deleted, not anonymized. their reply: "As per our Terms we do not delete, we only anonymize. If there is information that is personally identifiable you will need to provide me direct links to that content and it can be redacted for things."

i pointed out that i never agreed to any vs tos, they haven't replied. obviously they aren't going to budge.

i did re-register anonymously, and i was intrigued to see that the welcome email came from chris scoones' profile: "Hi. We're glad you're here. While this is an automatically generated message, replies come to me." that's followed by rules, and then an explicit appeal for financial support. signed by Chris Scoones.

gives the impression that chris is either still affiliated/employed/involved, or else this is cleary a misrepresentation inteded to give newcomers a false impression of who owns and runs WFF....
Click to expand...
This just sucks. I'd spent some time scrubbing my posts and changing all my account details over there, and was probably going to ask for my account to be deleted at some later date. Anonymized? WTF?!

Now I'm really glad I'm over here, thanks to the three musketeers!

Kenneth
 
Well, I deleted my name where I could. Changed my Avatar to a "kitchen sink" lure. I'm still logged in and will leave it that way. About in a week I'll go back over and just log off. I think I can't remember what my password is anymore any way.
 
As you know I am not at all tech savvy so when I went through the steps to change my email at the big WHIFF I got nervous about what would happen. If I changed my email there does that mean that really nice lady from Uganda won't be able to notify me when that $1.7M finally gets deposited in the bank account I told her about? That would be a real bummer.
 
Evan Burck said:
Let's say, hypothetically, you left another forum but your account is still there. To make sure your email address and name aren't compromised, here's one thing you can do. Many forums are owned by large corporations who sell your data.

  1. Go to: https://relay.firefox.com/
  2. Have it create/generate a new email address for you. This address will automatically forward to the email you signed up with on the first page.
  3. Go to the forum or other site you don't want having your info
  4. Update your profile with this new email address
  5. It will send you a confirmation email - go to your real email account, open this confirmation email, and click the confirmation link.
  6. Go back to https://relay.firefox.com/ and turn the switch "off" - this way no more emails that get sent through that will ever make it to you
View attachment 615

Done! The step-by-step should get you to the promised land
Click to expand...

A day late reading this. When I joined WFF, I created a unique email address because, Hey! I didn't know any of you and didn't need pecker pills. I've never sent a single message from that address and have received a mere handful of notifications from that forum over the years. In short, no one knew about it except me and that forum...

Last week I started receiving email on that account urging me to join in a class-action lawsuit for (against?) a product I've never used and a company from which I've never knowingly purchased anything. I deleted the email address (and thus, didn't use it here) and then learned that site had been sold to some damned for-profit company.

Did this happen to anyone else? Was I the only lucky one? If I have to be lucky, I'd prefer it be when salmon fishing...
 
swimmy said:
Might not have been possible but I wish Chris would've given us a heads up.
Click to expand...

There were a lot of bullshit "Thanks Chris" messages over there and it still bugs me. I liked the guy as much as I could like someone I've never met, and he was generous when we conversed through PM's, but if it had really, honestly grown to be too much effort, he could have passed the forum on to the brave souls who created this one. Nah, he monetized the site when he started subscription services while reducing what a person could see if they hadn't signed-up and then sold it without, as swimmy said, giving us a chance to bail out and delete our accounts and user information... because that's what VS really wanted to buy.

That's worse than hot-spotting.

JMHO
 
Tinker said:
There were a lot of bullshit "Thanks Chris" messages over there and it still bugs me. I liked the guy as much as I could like someone I've never met, and he was generous when we conversed through PM's, but if it had really, honestly grown to be too much effort, he could have passed the forum on to the brave souls who created this one. Nah, he monetized the site when he started subscription services while reducing what a person could see if they hadn't signed-up and then sold it without, as swimmy said, giving us a chance to bail out and delete our accounts and user information... because that's what VS really wanted to buy.

That's worse than hot-spotting.

JMHO
Click to expand...
I've kind of had the same thoughts. I'll confess to having NO idea how the money side of a forum works or what a forum like that is worth to a big company, but a heads up and giving members a chance to buy it instead would have been cool. Maybe it's worth way more than I suspect and he figured no way members would cough up the amount a corporation would. I don't begrudge him trying to make some money, but the situation does suck. Guess I didn't realize how much an internet forum meant to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top