Here’s an email I recently received from the folks at Audiogon:
Hello,
It has recently come to our attention that many Audiogon Members are using the Audiogon name in their e-mail addresses. This is not only a violation of copyright laws but it also opens up the Audiogon brandname for abuse in the nature of “Paypal” and other such internet business related e-mail scams. As a result, we are issuing a formal request for these members to change/remove their e-mail addresses.
We request that the e-mail address be changed within 48 hours from the time of notification or else face membership suspension. Additionally, we ask that use of the violating address be discontinued within four weeks.
Thank you,
Audiogon Management
Now, since I own blowery.org, I often make up “fake” email addresses for different services. I do this so I can trace which services sell my email address to other services. Over the years, it’s come in quite handy. In this case, I was using the email address audiogon at blowery dot org for the service. To their credit, I havn’t received much, if any, spam from that address.
This email really made me angry. I feel like it’s insinuating that I’m a criminal in some way, when I’m just trying to keep my email world a bit more organized. I am not a lawyer, so I have no idea if their claim actually holds any water, but I’d love to hear from anyone else who’s gotten this kind of notice to see what happened. As it stands, I’m just going to let them cancel my account, as I havn’t logged onto the site in a few years, so it’s really no skin off my nose to “lose” the account.
Thoughts?