Alexa Collecting Incorrect Contact Information, Feeding to Spammers?
Hopefully the title caught your attention. I received an email today from an irate customer saying he has been receiving emails from people who think that he is the owner of one of my websites.
To make a long story short I tracked down the problem. It wasn’t a problem with the WHOIS information, but from Alexa website information. I noticed in their FAQs “E-mail addresses may be gathered from the actual web site, or from domain registration information.”.
I specifically leave emails off of my websites as I prefer contact forms. One of my customers had used the comments area one one of my websites (I’m not divulging the website to further protect the innocent) to ask a question. Apparently Alexa took that address to be the website owner and listed it in their directory… free for anyone to find.
Now the customer has been receiving offers from people who think (according to Alexa’s records) that he is the domain owner. Yikes. Alexa says it will take up to four weeks to “correct” the listing. Thanks a lot Alexa!
Explore posts in the same categories: Computer Technology