E-mail addresses are the currency in a financial shell game that involves rapidly moving consumer contact information from database to database while concealing where and how the data was collected, according to West's research, which he has documented in a map that painstakingly details all the dark and twisted paths that your e-mail address has been traveling.. . .
E-mail addresses are the currency in a financial shell game that involves rapidly moving consumer contact information from database to database while concealing where and how the data was collected, according to West's research, which he has documented in a map that painstakingly details all the dark and twisted paths that your e-mail address has been traveling.

Spammers harvest e-mail addresses from websites and public posts on Internet newsgroups and bulletin boards and then sell the addresses to other spammers, or to unscrupulous marketing companies who pay a bounty fee per submitted name. These marketing lists may eventually be sold to legitimate companies who often believe they are purchasing a list of eager consumers' addresses.

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