Spam email after opening a WordPress account
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Anyone else who’s started to receive spam email from 3rd party agents like Professly shortly after opening an account here?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hello averdande,
Is the spam coming in via your comments? The Akismet comment spam filter usually takes care of that, but it doesn’t catch everything. You might try adding rules to the comment blacklist section to automatically mark some comments as spam.
For more info about comment spam check out the Unwanted Comments and Comment Spam support page.
I hope this was helpful and please let me know if you have any other questions.
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The spam appears in my personal gmail account, with the email address provided to WordPress when signing up. My WordPress site is in private mode. The spam email was from Professly, containing targeted WordPress courses advertising. It appeared 1.5 days after singing up to WordPress, in an email account that has never before received spam emails. I’m no statistician, but this is surely not a coincidence, and leads me to believe that WordPress is leaking private email-addresses to 3rd parties without user consent.
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Averdande,
Yes, I see now that your blog is set to private. What you’re describing doesn’t really sound like a coincidence to me either, yet I don’t think WordPress.com would be giving away your info without your permission.
Could marking Professly’s email as spam act as a temporary solution?
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Spam mail was from a marketeer with domain devopsmail.com acting on behalf on Professly so “culprit” is devopsmail. Solution is simple enough as this type of mail goes directly to spam anyways.
It’s more a matter of principle as I don’t associate with companies leaking private information, which is the case here, as my email is private and only shared with, up until now, trustworthy service providers.
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Hey @averdande,
Your issue is understandable and I’m sorry for your frustration. In my experience WordPress.com strives to give the best service and customer protection, but that’s not the case for everyone.
Is there anything else I could help you with regarding your WordPress.com site?
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Hi @averdande, we send a few getting started emails after you start a site here — are you referring to those?
If you’ll let me know the titles of the emails I can check.
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No, I’m referring to a marketing email sent from domain devopsmail.com. Titel of the email was: “Get 30% off on the best WordPress online courses” and content was advertising for 3 specific WordPress courses offered by professly.com. The domain devopsmail.com is associated with professly.com as it redirects here when entered in the browser. It’s a statistical impossibility that this targeted WordPress spam email was sent to my private, and newly created, address 1.5 days after signing up to WordPress. It is the only spam mail I have ever received to this email, leading me to believe that someone inside WordPress or with access to the system has snooped my email and actively entered it, given it to the guys behind Professly. Both alternatives are serious and a massive breach of trust!
I’m ok with email coming directly from WordPress and the wordpress.com domain as this is natural when signing up for the service, and also something I can administer myself from within my account. My problem is with my email being given away to 3rd parties without my consent.
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By the way, you can find our privacy policy here:
https://automattic.com/privacy/We do take that seriously, so I’ll reach out for more info. Cheers!
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