I don't trust companies. This is why I am always curious about their need to know my personal information before I can try their products. If then I am filling in a form on Acme's website I will supply the email address acme@mydomain.com where mydomain.com is the domain I own and use for my personal mail - yes I have a life outside codestore too ;o) Any mail to this address must then have come via that site.

Luckily this has never really been a problem until this Sunday when my inbox looked like this:

The name Cassetica took me by surprise as it belongs to a company whose products I actually recommend. All three mails were to the address I have only ever specified when I downloaded their NotesMedic Pro. What shocked me was they were not trying to now sell me "targeted" Notes consultancy. They were offering "incest of all kinds" and claimed "This is NOT SPAM - You have received this e-mail because at one time or another you entered the weekly draw at one of our portals or FFA sites."

I've mailed Cassetica and they say that they don't sell their "lists" and are investigating. Whether or not they provide an apology/explanation is another thing. The important factor is how the hell did they get their hands on your data in the first place! What can they do about it now? Nothing. Another list of addresses includes my domain and there is nothing they can do to change that.

The moral of the story is: Don't give them your address. Use a fake address at their domain. For example, if you're registering at Acme.com your email address is jake.howlett@acme.com. This way they suffer the consequence of their not following their own privacy statement.