I've just joined this project and I noticed the following text in the Moo! Wrapper Preferences ...

Distributed.net ID
WARNING! This address can be included in public listings and can get harvested by spammers.
Please, choose one where you can tolerate spam (but you should be able to receive mails).

Is this true for all BOINC projects or only this one ?

Has anyone found this to be a problem ?

I have been contributing to many BOINC projects for years without receiving spam.
I'd like to help this project, but I don't want to suddenly receive lots of spam emails.

I've just joined this project and I noticed the following text in the Moo! Wrapper Preferences ...

Distributed.net ID
WARNING! This address can be included in public listings and can get harvested by spammers.
Please, choose one where you can tolerate spam (but you should be able to receive mails).

Is this true for all BOINC projects or only this one ?

Has anyone found this to be a problem ?

I have been contributing to many BOINC projects for years without receiving spam.
I'd like to help this project, but I don't want to suddenly receive lots of spam emails.

I crunched here for a while and do not remember getting a single spam email as a result.

Thanks for your reply Mikey.

I've been looking around and have found some more information myself ...

I've found the following in the rules and policies ...

To participate in Moo! Wrapper, you must give an address where you receive email. This address will not be shown on the Moo! Wrapper web site or shared with unrelated third party organizations. Moo! Wrapper may send you periodic newsletters; however, you can opt out at any time.

However, by default the email address you provide will be used as your Distributed.net ID. This ID can be shown on public listings at Moo! Wrapper website and on stats at Distributed.net website. You can choose a different email in your preferences to protect your primary email address. For more information, please read Distributed.net Legal Policy

In the distributed.net Legal Policy I found ...

By running a client and submitting blocks credited to your email address, you give distributed.net the right to post your email address on its statistics pages. distributed.net will never intentionally release email addresses in any other fashion without the address owner's consent.

When I go to the distributed.net statistics pages I can see a lot of participant's email addresses although some people seem to have identified themselves with a name rather than an email address. I guess this is where spammers could get participants email addresses.

Thanks for your reply Mikey.

I've been looking around and have found some more information myself ...

I've found the following in the rules and policies ...

To participate in Moo! Wrapper, you must give an address where you receive email. This address will not be shown on the Moo! Wrapper web site or shared with unrelated third party organizations. Moo! Wrapper may send you periodic newsletters; however, you can opt out at any time.

However, by default the email address you provide will be used as your Distributed.net ID. This ID can be shown on public listings at Moo! Wrapper website and on stats at Distributed.net website. You can choose a different email in your preferences to protect your primary email address. For more information, please read Distributed.net Legal Policy

In the distributed.net Legal Policy I found ...

By running a client and submitting blocks credited to your email address, you give distributed.net the right to post your email address on its statistics pages. distributed.net will never intentionally release email addresses in any other fashion without the address owner's consent.

When I go to the distributed.net statistics pages I can see a lot of participant's email addresses although some people seem to have identified themselves with a name rather than an email address. I guess this is where spammers could get participants email addresses.

Could be, I have never been to that page. If you see things like mikey@distributed.net or anything with a distributed.net email address they are in project only and do not really connect to anything, that would NOT be my real email address for example. There is/was a prize being awarded a while back and some users asked how we could share in the cash, but it turns out the money wasn't a real possibility anyway. There was money, but to get it the requirements were soooo specific that basically it couldn't be won by anyone or anything. That is the last time I heard about the email addresses at all, it was in relation to us users being able to win the prize. The project of course has your real email address, that is how you sign up, but I do not think it shares that, at least I cannot ever remember getting an email from them, or anyone saying they got it from Moo.

Like most people I DO get spam emails, but I think it is from the email forwarding service I use. I bought an email address, a LONG time ago, and then my isp gives me one, I have one at this or that place, I have one there etc, etc. So what I do is give all my friends the one I bought and tell the company where to forward it. It has let me keep the same email address for the last 20 years, despite the different isp's I have had and all the other things I have done too.