More spam emails since doing MTurk

[s&jb]

I've only been doing MTurk since January of this year and I've noticed an increase of spam in my emails. Is there anyway to prevent this? Anyone else get a bunch of junk mail since doing MTurk?

 

[aveline]

I've only been doing MTurk since January of this year and I've noticed an increase of spam in my emails. Is there anyway to prevent this? Anyone else get a bunch of junk mail since doing MTurk?

I think it's a good practice to make an email account just for MTurk, that's separate from your personal email account. That way, if a requester gets your email address because you either corresponded with them or you just gave it to them, they can't do too much with it. That's something I wish I had done right when I started turking. I corresponded with a requester back in 2014 and I still occasionally get spam emails from them, even though they haven't posted anything on MTurk in over five years.

There are also occasional HITs that require you to have social media accounts. A lot of people will keep dummy accounts for stuff like that as well, which I also think is probably a good idea.

I think you just have to be mindful of the information that you're putting out there when you work on a platform like this. Requesters aren't really supposed to ask for your personal or contact information, but they often do anyway. Many requesters will respect your privacy, but I think every time you run into one of those situations where you're asked for info, it should be treated like they won't. Also, keep in mind that if you reply to an email from a requester, they will see your name and your email address.

 

[s&jb]

I think it's a good practice to make an email account just for MTurk, that's separate from your personal email account. That way, if a requester gets your email address because you either corresponded with them or you just gave it to them, they can't do too much with it. That's something I wish I had done right when I started turking. I corresponded with a requester back in 2014 and I still occasionally get spam emails from them, even though they haven't posted anything on MTurk in over five years.

There are also occasional HITs that require you to have social media accounts. A lot of people will keep dummy accounts for stuff like that as well, which I also think is probably a good idea.

I think you just have to be mindful of the information that you're putting out there when you work on a platform like this. Requesters aren't really supposed to ask for your personal or contact information, but they often do anyway. Many requesters will respect your privacy, but I think every time you run into one of those situations where you're asked for info, it should be treated like they won't. Also, keep in mind that if you reply to an email from a requester, they will see your name and your email address.

Great ideas. Thank you so much!