This morning I got an email from a Cora, on behalf of Acebeam, to my personal email address. She wanted to draw my attention to a few new Acebeam lights. I don’t own any Acebeam lights, nor have I ever asked any information about them. All of my contacts with manufacturers and sellers go via forum PM’s, or their own messager. So I’m quite certain I have never given Acebeam my personal email address.
At the same time I got a question from Manker on the same email address to review the (clearance) light I just bought from them. They have my email address because I bought the light directly from them.
Did anything simular happen on your private email addresses?
If you give your email to one Chinese company - Banggood, Gearbest, Manker, anyone - you should assume the whole of China has your details. Your email, address, purchases, everything.
That’s just the nature of China. Privacy, data protection, GDPR etc are alien concepts to to them. It is the wild west.
If you want to know where the leak came from you need to use a unique email address for every site. You can do this with some email providers. Then when you get some spam to that address and you know which site leaked it. But even then, if you know that eg Bangood has leaked your address, what are you going to do ? Write a stern email ?
I once clicked a link in a search engine to an LL Bean store page for a pair of gloves. I looked at the page for about 10 seconds and closed it. I didn’t click anything, create any accounts, or make any purchases. The following week, I received an LL Bean catalog in my mailbox, addressed to me by name. This is the world we live in today.
Another thing you should, or could do is signing up with a Gmail address and add the site name where you sign up for. You need to add a Plus + symbol behind your name, succeeded by the name of the site you sign up for, and before the @ mark.
For example: myname+blf@gmail.com
This only works for gmail though.
You can add the name of the website behind the + symbol, and all emails will be delivered to your email box myname@gmail.com
SO you can have:
myname+cpf@gmail.com ,
myname+banggood@gmail.com,
myname+gearbest@gmail.com,
If any of these vendors sell your email address, you should be able to see WHO sold your email address since you added their site name to your email address.
Sometimes I can’t believe that generations of people alive right now lived through having their name, address and phone number published publicly. Not sure when their feelings shifted so much.