How did those Democratic primary campaigns get your email address?

[MineralMan]

Some people are complaining about getting emails from candidates they don't support. So how do those candidates get your email address, anyhow?

Well, there are many, many ways. Have you signed up with your local Democratic Party organization? A state or national party organization? Have you voted in one of those petition drives by any organization? Have you supplied your email address to any political organization at all?

If so, then, that's how they got your email address. Anytime you type it in to any fundraising or political website for any reason, it becomes part of the data stream. That data has monetary value, and so is sold to pretty much anyone who will cough up a few cents per email address. Campaigns buy that data, so they can send out their own fundraising requests.

How else? Have you sent an angry email to some candidate you don't support? Guess what - your email address gets added to their data automatically. They don't care if you like them or hate them. If they get your email address, you're going to get email from them.

Postal addresses are old school. You gave that, though, when you registered to vote and those registration records are public information. You'll start getting snail mail from all candidates soon, if you haven't already received it. Door knockers will be showing up as the elections get closer, too. They know who you are. They know you're a Democrat. Expect them.

Have you opted out of some email campaigns? Guess what? That information is valuable, too, and lists of people who have opted out of one campaign's mailings are for sale, too.

Bottom line: If you supply your email address to anyone or any organization with political interests, it will be sold and you'll get emails. That's how it works. The only way to get rid of it is to change your email address and never go to your old one to check your email. Why do you think nobody will let you vote in their poll or sign their petition without giving a valid email address, anyhow? It's all part of the data mining industry. Your email address is the gold they're looking for.

Don't like all that email? Just mark it as spam and let your email client application send it to the junk mail folder. It's not that difficult to eliminate such emails. They'll still come, but you won't have to see them.

[NurseJackie]

1. I'm amazed at how many folks willingly and eagerly provide valid email addresses ...

... in order to participate in meaningless (vanity) online polls and "petitions" or "quizzes" or "tests" or "candidate match-ups", etc.

[MineralMan]

3. I'm not amazed, really.

People want to participate. They want their opinion to be registered. That's why there are so many petition websites and other sites set up to let people voice their opinions. All of them, and I mean ALL of them, are in the data collection business. They won't let you vote or sign without giving them that precious email address and maybe some location info, like your ZIP code. No human looks at those addresses, either. They're verified automatically and added to the growing data.

It's all for sale. The more info they gather, the more valuable your address is. Candidates can buy lists for a specific state or even a specific ZIP code. The more filters that are applied, the more each email address is worth. It's a growth industry.

Even those who never go to a petition or polling site may get their email address added. Did you buy a bumper sticker for your favorite candidate somewhere online? Well, you supplied your email address and it will be sold. Did you subscribe to some website or newsletter? There's another data point for sale.

There are companies that do nothing but buy up this data from all sorts of sources. They create new databases they can sort and sell. It's one of the biggest industries out there these days.

[NurseJackie]

6. I'll provide a fake email, or an unique disposable email ...

... one that forwards to my real address, and which can be disabled if needed. Because the unique email is given to only one site (or business or candidate) that makes it easy for me to tell who sold it, or who has security issues.

[MineralMan]

8. I've simply stopped ever supplying my email address to

anyone, unless I want to get stuff from them. That and my Yahoo spam filter have pretty much eliminated crap from my inbox. I don't have time to create a bunch of bogus email addresses. Yuck!

[NurseJackie]

11. I use a forwarding service ... just a few clicks. But ...

... you're right! It would be a pain to create actual new accounts for extra working email addresses the standard way.

Thanks for this OP ... it was needed. The conspiracy theories were getting out of hand and a bit silly.

[SheilaT]

2. I'm reminded of people who freak out when some group

or business called them on their "unlisted" phone, never realizing they give out their phone number in lots of places, too.

Me, I'm only getting emails from the one campaign I've donated money to. If I get any from another campaign, I'll just unsubscribe, something a lot of people here seem never to have heard of.

[MineralMan]

5. Yup. And robo-callers don't even bother with lists.

They just dial all 9,999 possible number combinations in your local phone exchange. They don't care. If a fax line answers, that's recorded and that particular number isn't called again. If you pick up your phone and there's no one there on the line, well, now the robo-dialer knows there's a human being at that number and your number gets a higher priority.

They can do the same for cell phones now, too. my cell phone exchange is 295 in my area code. There are 9,999 possible number combinations in that exchange. A computer can dial them all with no effort at all and record whether some human answered or it went to voicemail or wasn't in service. The next time, the calls are prioritized.

[BlueMTexpat]

12. Exactly - it's that simple. eom

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I'm assuming the same way everybody else who wants to sell me something

gets my email address - because mailing lists get sold all over the place. I don't want investment "advice," solicitations from Nigerian scammers, boner pills, or email from Hillary Clinton. It's all spam and it gets filtered out. No big deal.

[MineralMan]

7. Exactly. Everyone can mark anything as spam, and

their email client learns from that. Pretty soon, you never see that email again. I click spam on any email I don't want. These days, I pretty much only see emails from recognized addresses in my inbox. I check my spam folder briefly each day and dump it. I haven't found a worthwhile email in there for a long time. I've been working with my spam filter for several years. It works.

[Stellar]

9. It all goes to my spam folder and I am so tired of getting junk mail from my party...

(and everybody else) that I've never heard of before. So, my thought is that this email situation is coming from my party that sells my info to others. At least, that's what I think, especially since I haven't contributed to anyone financially yet.

[MineralMan]

10. Yes. Local Party organizations ask for your email address, too.

I use a very long one that's hard to type correctly. That saves me from getting some emails. I've had the same one for many, many years.

[BlueCheese]

13. In the wake of the data breach episode...

I enjoyed the simultaneous claims that

(1) The Sanders campaign couldn't have stolen any data because the VAN prevented it, and
(2) The Clinton campaign must have stolen my data, because how else would someone get my email?

[LWolf]

14. I've been marking

the flood of emails I get from the DNC as spam for years.

They still appear on a very regular basis.

Marking them as spam doesn't prevent the next flood from arriving.