Another FT member was attempting to track me down in real life, based upon my e-mail address.

I wonder, for the protection of us all, if it would be helpful to set up an e-mail alias/forwarding system by which people could send e-mail to us at something like:

[email protected]

and it would automatically be forwarded to our real e-mail addresses.

This way, we could all feel free to post our e-mail addresses without fear of others attempting to track us down in real life, for whatever reason. While these days it is entirely possible to simply set up a free e-mail account with Yahoo, Hotmail or the likes, I think this would be much more convenient. With the exception of this one situation, I have had a tremendous opportunity to correspond with FT members, learning a lot along the way and making new connections. I would hate to lose this opportunity.

What do people think?

d

(Answering your question and continuing from the original thread in TalkBoard...)

Yahoo offers mail forwarding on their Yahoo! Mail Plus product ($30 per year), and if you use Outlook (may just be Outlook XP), you can manage your hotmail messages from there.

I have no problem with people tracking me down in real life. I live in real life.

QL

I have no problem with people contacting me at the e-mail address in my profile and discussing real-world contact.

I do have a problem with people trolling around sending e-mails out to organizations in the vicinity of my profile "from" location attempting to surreptitiously dig up personal details about me, with dubious and perhaps even malicious intent.

d

OK then, why do you still have your location in your profile then?? Wouldn't it just be easier to hide your email address and empty your profile?

For those that want to download Yahoo mail with outlook, try this:

yahoopops.sourceforge.net

Yes, it is disturbing that some members can not respect the privacy of other FT members.

Perhaps the moderators might be of assistance?

That's really an awful comment. It's like saying that if you don't like stalkers in real life, wouldn't it just be easier to never leave home.

I guess this is a situation of "the rest of us" being hurt by a bad apple.

I could do that, but who would have thought that I would have to be concerned about an FT member trying to track me down and making threats in the first place? Maybe I'm just naive, or I've come across too many good apples here.

Anyway, I suppose the solution for now is to not have an e-mail address. If I come across a free forwarding service I'll do that, but it's too much of a hassle to set up another e-mail address and have to start checking it all the time...

d

Why is it an awful comment? It's a serious piece of advice. And sadly comparing the internet to leaving the house doesn't work, when you leave your front door you see people, the net doesn't work like that.

I hope your post was sarcastic because I was trying to offer some serious advice to help Doppy here.

When you are on FT, people in general know how to contact you if you have such information and don't know if you don't have it. If someone has contact information, it probably means they want to be able to be contacted in general.

To suggest that they remove this information and remove all chance for all people to contact them just because of one bad experience is, IMHO, ludicrous. It's the sort of thing that causes more inconvenience to the person concerned and more inconvenience to others trying to contact them.

Doppy: Can you send me an email please?

Thanks.

Sorry Kremmen, but wake up and smell the Internet. I agree, it's ludicrous but it's reality.

It's like complaining you get spammed when you have your address visable on FT, it's not a question of IF but WHEN it will happen. It's not an FT problem, it's an Internet problem.

On the net you don't know who you are chatting with, and certainly in Doppy's case that turned out to backfire. If you really want to be safe online, hide what you need.

We think there is a simple solution - one that has been thought about and really is just a matter of timing for us. In a new version to FlyerTalk, we're likely to be introducing personal email on FT, that will allow you to mask your own details of email but yet allow you to be corresponded to within FT - that is, the program has private mail only available when you are on FT (member-to-member). We've also thought about the relaunch of public email but as noted above, that will probably lead to spam as well as it really is an internet problem, not relagated to only FT. Anyway, it's on the horizaon and thanks for reminding us it needs to be addressed. We do need these reminders from time-to-time.

I like the sound of that solution.

d