How To Find Out Who Sold Your Gmail Address To Spammers

We hate spam and hate those spammers too.  But how do we get spam?  We get most of the spam from the spammers who buy our email address from the websites where we register and give out the email address.

It is absolutely impossible for us to find out who sold our email address to those spammers who choke our inbox with unwanted emails.  But now there is a solution to find out people who sell our confidential information to others.  Gmail provides a not so explicit feature which you can use to find out which website is giving out your email address to spammers.  This will not work for the previous websites where you have already registered but you can use it for future registrations.

Here is how to use it:

1. While signing up for any new website enter your Gmail address as your_user_name+website_name@gmail.com.

2. Don't worry, you will receive the mails as usual because Gmail doesn't recognize any combination of words or numbers after the "+" sign.

3. Whenever you get any spam message just click on the "Show Details" link to expand the email header and find out the email address to which it was sent.  The images below show a test which I did with a "+" sign on my email address.

4. If you had signed up according to the step number 1, you will be able to find out who gave your email address to the spammer.

Use this to find out which websites are selling your email addresses, check out their privacy policy and sue them if they lied.  If you found this useful, don't forget to share it with others.