What can people do if they have your email address?
347754
That depends in part on who your provider is. The biggest danger is that many places use your email addy as your user name. This means having your email addy gives them half the access they need for example to have a go at getting at your banking records. If you use a simple password there is a real danger. Do not use whole words, personal data like birth dates, names of relitives/friends/pets as a password. Always mix numbers or uppercase chars with letters. Never use a purely numeric or alphabetic password. \n\nIf your email provider is a local ISP they can locate what town you live in. In the old days a utility called finger would actually dig up quite a bit of info. If you have a static IP there still might be detailed info availible on you. This does not apply to web based email like Yahoo. Most ISPs block finger requests nowdays. I was able to stop a man from harrassing a woman once back in the early 90s by fingering him and calling him to discuss the problem. All of this I got from just an email addy. \n\nAs pointed out your name could be sold to spammers or used as the return address of spammers. That is worse since many places still use black lists and your email addy could be permanently blocked from sending mail to whole companies because a spammer used it to spoof. Worse if the password is easy to crack a hacker might take over your email addy and use it as part of hacking attempts. If you use Internet Explorer or Outlook to read your email you are especially vulnerable to this. Every month it seems a new exploit comes out which allows a hacker to send you s specially crafted message, which if you open it will then give the hacker control over your machine. Firefox has fewer of these vulnerabilities and they are usually addressed quicker when they happen. The danger is significant if you do online banking and or bill pay. Switching to Firefox for web browsing and a different email client such as Thunderbird or Evolution will greatly decrease your risks of getting hacked\nin such a way.  Outlook is known as Outbreak in the computer security circles because of Outlook's constant and severe security problems. Use that only as a last resort option until you can get a better email client. \n\nDo a search on your email address. You might be surprised how much somebody could learn about you. Many web pages are created by ametuers with no idea how to block web spiders from sensitive areas. This means that a well meaning volenteer in a club or organization you belong too could be broadcasting quite a bit of detail about you. Details that sometimes include physical address, hobbies, interests, associations, phone number and other sensitive details. Most people will turn up nothing. Mine for example turned up a page from an online game I used to play and a membership page at a fantasy baseball site. Searching on another of my email addys turned up answers to Linux questions, a submission to a lyrics site, and two other pages of info. So an enemy or stalker could learn quite a bit about a person from just their email addy if you are quite active on the web. What I tend to do is use a couple email addys for high profile stuff such as memberships to public areas, online games and other unimportant stuff. Then I have about four email addys I use for memberships to more sensitive accounts and for good friends and other important email. This reduces risks and makes it easier to find email I really want to read as my public email addys are the ones sold to spam lists and lifted by spammer's web spiders from careless web designers.\n\nOverall your risks are low. Taking a few precautions such as using a public email addy and a more secure private email addy, strong passwords and not using insecure software will provide more insurance.  Today for the moment, unless somebody really has it out for you the odds are that nobody will bother you. There are tens of millions of email addys out there. Most of these are broadcasted in so
227514
They wouldn't give out their personal email address or do you mean like fan mail?
720201
you can't, you don't even know this persons last name so obviously you aren't friends. if someone wants you to have their email address they will give it to you, if they didn't its probably because they prefer not to hear from you or have no idea who you are. sounds like with the lack of info you have you can carry on your life and think nothing more about this and you won't be missing anything!
967756
It would be complicated, but you could always check your 'Sent' folder and outbox for hints. Also, you could mail round your contacts and ask if they have had any odd emails from your account. And, of course if you suspect or discover something, change your password. :D
442867
Well,that person may of set his or her email to foward to you and your email may be common (common: Shawn@yahoo.com Uncommon: Jackie228642@yahoo.com)
587054
NO THEY CANNOT\nBECAUSE THEY ARE BLOCKED FROM YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS\nTHEY ARENT ALLOWED TO MAIL U THIINGS
1068485
have them send it to another email address
858817
it depends on how much info you have given them, email that is not on the server but your out look etc.
643396
when you make an email address .. dont put your real address?
499126
look for a profile if one exist.. or google the begining of the address & see if their name is else where.\nif the email was threatening (etc) you can report it back to the company it was sent from.\nview the full header ... view the sorce code (in FireFox right click you mouse & click View Page Source... in IE click View & then Source).\n\nit generally takes some work & with free email accounts - it is easy to hide behind them
41989
inevercheckmyemail@whatever.com
925835
As long as you don't give out any personal information, passwords, or id info, it doesn't matter if you contact this address.  The worst that might happen is that your email address might get on mailing lists and you will get a lot of junkmail.  I keep an email address just for making contact with addresses that might add me to junkmail lists.  That way my personal email address doesn't get filled up with spam
314908
Only if that person has enabled email in his/her profile.  But please think carefully first; you have no idea what you may be starting.
886702
Don't use Google mail!\nGoogle does not protect your email's privacy.  They read and scan your emails to do who know what.\n\nYou have been warned!
404599
you e-mail them of course. Obviously don't just say "Who are you?" Have a reason why you're asking them whose email address it belongs to. Or if you know it belongs to one of your friends, ask them. Better yet, ask your friends who does the email address belong to before you actually email to the address.\n\nPS Penguins!!!
57179
that's theoretically impossible. unfortunately, even if the person you're looking for registered with their real name and city (which doesn't always happen) i believe email providers are not allowed by law to give out their customers' information.
40865
Email address if you allow it to be displayed. And perhaps if, through that address, they are able to pull your profile from wherever it is from.....\n\nThen I suppose it is feasible. But it would take a lot of work, and would most likely be fruitless.\n\nIt is possible, just not very likely.