Phishing E-mails

I recently got a phishing e-mail that said it was taking a survey. To investigate, I went to its domain name and it appeard as some furniture store or something. I forget the domain name but I do know that they somehow got my e-mail and knew I was a gamer. How?

If you've ever signed up for a website and not read the smallprint, it says somewhere they will pass your information to other people.

Also, its not hard to guess that someone is a gamer. Just about everyone on the internet is.

They don't need to know you're a gamer, they just send out the mail and for that part of the recipients that are indeed gamers it's a match, and maybe a hit.

Read through the last 2-3 paragraphs of any terms for websites you are joining(if not you don't read the whole thing). Thats usually where the part that says they will or will not give away/sell your info. Also read the whole paragraph cause I have seen a few that say something like: We will not sell or give out your information to anyone. Enter a few lame sentences to make you not notice. Next sentence: However we will give information out if we think the company can help in advancing your internet experience.

Basically they are saying we will not give it out to anyone unless we think(since its opnion it makes it a loop-hole) they can help you.

Also when you are signing up there will be a place where you can check uncheck boxes to certain websites. Like it will have all the checkboxes filled in then you go uncheck/keep checked the ones you want. Make sure you don't miss that part of the account creation part(Most forum sites that are bieng hosted free by someone else's domain will have these). They will say like *checkbox* Would you like to recieve free email alerts from *insert crappy marketing item* monthly?

I didn't fill out the survey and I deleted the e-mail. It's more like this: how did they get my e-mail in the first place? I think it might have something to do with this "phantom update."

Getting spam is not something new. Closed.