Over at digg, I saw this entry for a site where you can verify any e-mail address by typing it in their form and clicking go. The result tells you whether the e-mail is valid or not. Well at first glance I thought this might be a really useful site, but after I think about it some more, I worry that it might be used as a way to harvest viable e-mail addresses for spamming. Is that a valid concern or am I being paranoid?
Here's a screen-shot of the site:
Interesting and it could be useful as you don't have to sign in or anything. But I'm left wondering if its really wise to type in your e-mail addresses or addresses of your friends? Couldn't this just be a way for spammers to harvest your e-mail address. Also, what if the owners of the sight are just collecting the good e-mails so they can sell them?
Others commenting at digg have the same concerns and I'm going to pass on this site. If you want to see it in action head over to http://verify-email.org/, but I caution you it could be a scam so think twice before using it.
UPDATE:
More concern that the e-mail checker site might be a way for spammers to collect and then sell e-mail addresses. The owner of the site is "e-mail marketing pro" who makes their money doing e-mail marketing including "marketing" (read spaming) to e-mail addresses. Here's a screen-shot from the bottom of the website:
Several Lifehacker commenters are also concerned about the site's intentions.
