Question on spam

[montee51]

I have been asked to locate contact names and email addresses for a project through a freelancer site I use. I suspect the info I provide may be used for spamming. Is there a potential problem for me if I assist in this project?

[netgal06]

I guess this is more of an ethical question than anything else really. Although if your name will be on record somewhere as being associated with spam you have to ask yourself will this affect your business reputation? Will you be associated with spam? On the otherhand if you have already agreeded to this project will backing out of the project affect your reputation as service provider? You need to weigh up the pros and cons of the situation

[rowenahere]

Locating contact names and e-mail addresses has two faces. Is it ethical or non-ethical? First, I wish to inquire how the location process will be executed. Definitely, these information which you are tasked to search are confidential matters. How are you going to start the locating endeavor? There is an issue of whether doing such is ethical or not? If your subjects are only the suspected spam proponents, they have to be located and be given the consequences to their negative action. Yet, if you are going to contact individuals with e-mail addresses and from there you have to assess who are guilty of spam, you might hit sensitive people or wrongly charged them. As I can see it, your employer/s or anyone who asked assistance from you already had the list of potential individuals. Just come to consider what you are doing is an investigative task. Consider yourself as a detective, a researcher perhaps or you name it.

[fadyllan]

An online private investigator, now that's a catchy name.

[astros99]

Well, it really depends on what kind of spam you mean. If you mean spam by just sending e-mails, then that is probably going to happen. If you mean spam by sending virus's and such, there is a less possibility of that. If you think about it, the company obviously wants the e-mails for a reason. If it's a business, and they want the e-mails to be people in a certain country or something, then they are probably trying to market a product. So, they might just be e-mailing it to let the consumer know about the product. I guess if you have a really good service provider, you can just ask them what they are going to do with the e-mails. Although, they might not always be honest. Especially if they have bad intentions.