Microsoft Study???

[Toni]

I received an email today, allegedly from Microsoft, for a study. It begins:

=start=============
From: [surveysitemail(dot)com email address]
Microsoft is conducting a study about a new offering and is interested in your opinion.

If you participate in this study, you may enter a contest to win one of five (5) $100
Amazon gift ceritificates.

Participate Now!
To participate, click the following URL: [securestudies(dot)com URL]

(blah blah blah)
Stop Sending Me This Type of E-mail!
If you prefer not to receive e-mail invitations to participate in comScore market
research on behalf of Microsoft, please please use this form:
[mailingsvcs(dot)com URL]
=end=============
The above is a cut/paste.

1. Notice that "certificates" is spelled wrong.
2. Notice duplicate words near the end in "please please use this form".

There is a MS link in the email, but it's not clear from that link whether this stupid
email is legit or not.

My antispam program is MailWasher Pro, and it's pretty damn near 100% effectve at
spotting spam. It firmly stamped this email as spam.

But is this legit? It seems almost criminally stupid to assume that Microsoft couldn't
conduct their own survey or manage their own mailing list, right? Especially since my
email preferences with Microsoft specifically state that I DO NOT want MS to share my
email address with 3rd parties (and yes, I am meticulous about these things).

If this IS from MS, they've now shared my contact information with three companies that
can't spell (surveysitemail, securestudies, and mailingsvcs DOTcom)

Can anyone verify this as legit, or disgustingly spammy? Has Microsoft cheerfully
violated my privacy?

Thanks to anyone that can help!!!

 

[DL]

delete it, puzzle gone

 

[C]

I received an email today, allegedly from Microsoft, for a study. It begins:

Spam. Delete it. Forget it. Move on.

 

[Lem]

I received an email today, allegedly from Microsoft, for a study. It begins:

=start=============
From: [surveysitemail(dot)com email address]
Microsoft is conducting a study about a new offering and is interested in your opinion.

If you participate in this study, you may enter a contest to win one of five (5) $100
Amazon gift ceritificates.

Participate Now!
To participate, click the following URL: [securestudies(dot)com URL]

(blah blah blah)
Stop Sending Me This Type of E-mail!
If you prefer not to receive e-mail invitations to participate in comScore market
research on behalf of Microsoft, please please use this form:
[mailingsvcs(dot)com URL]
=end=============
The above is a cut/paste.

1. Notice that "certificates" is spelled wrong.
2. Notice duplicate words near the end in "please please use this form".

There is a MS link in the email, but it's not clear from that link whether this stupid
email is legit or not.

My antispam program is MailWasher Pro, and it's pretty damn near 100% effectve at
spotting spam. It firmly stamped this email as spam.

But is this legit? It seems almost criminally stupid to assume that Microsoft couldn't
conduct their own survey or manage their own mailing list, right? Especially since my
email preferences with Microsoft specifically state that I DO NOT want MS to share my
email address with 3rd parties (and yes, I am meticulous about these things).

If this IS from MS, they've now shared my contact information with three companies that
can't spell (surveysitemail, securestudies, and mailingsvcs DOTcom)

Can anyone verify this as legit, or disgustingly spammy? Has Microsoft cheerfully
violated my privacy?

Thanks to anyone that can help!!!

Of course it's spam.

A good, but not 100% perfect, place to check out websites:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/ (run by McAfee)
And see in the comments about the securestudies site concerning comScore

As for "sharing your contact information," you've now done that with the
entire Internet by posting here using your unmunged email address.

 

[Toni]

...
:

As for "sharing your contact information," you've now done that with the entire
Internet by posting here using your unmunged email address.

No, I haven't

 

[MowGreen]

It's spam and *not* from MS. As 'strange' as MS can be sometimes, they
will *not* share your email address with 3rd parties if you choose that
option.
However, they will use 3rd parties for surveys but notify you in advance
and state that said 3rd parties are partners, not 3rd parties. Those
'partners' will *never* contact you without MS being involved and
*never* share your information with another party.
And, if MS does run a survey, they will offer some form of compensation
in return, not a limited amount of prizes.

MowGreen
================
* -343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
================

banthecheck.com
"Security updates should *never* have *non-security content* prechecked

 

[Saucy]

No Toni, it's not from Microsoft. Almost nothing that arrives in the
emailbox these days is from legitimate companies unless you already were
expecting it.

 

[Greg Russell]

In

I received an email today, allegedly from Microsoft, for a study. It
begins:

=start=============
From: [surveysitemail(dot)com email address]

Registrant:
Comscore, Inc
11950 Democracy Dr.
Suite 600
Reston, VA 20190
US
Domain Name: SURVEYSITEMAIL.COM

Participate Now!

An exclamation mark urging action is a sure sign of spam.

To participate, click the following URL: [securestudies(dot)com URL]

Registrant:
TMRG, INC.
11950 Democracy Dr.
Suite 600
Reston, VA 20190
US
Domain Name: SECURESTUDIES.COM

this form: [mailingsvcs(dot)com URL]

Registrant:
TMRG, INC.
11950 Democracy Dr.
Suite 600
Reston, VA 20190
US
Domain Name: MAILINGSVCS.COM

But is this legit?

3 different domains, 5th-grade grammar and even lesser spelling ... sounds
like they've almost got you on the hook, and now you're asking anyone from a
group of strangers here whether it's "legit"? If someone said "OK" would you
actually submit the form?

It seems almost criminally stupid to assume that
Microsoft couldn't conduct their own survey or manage their own
mailing list, right?

Riiiiiiiight ... maybe there's hope for you after all.

 

[Greg Russell]

In

No, I haven't

You used a valid domain "yahoo.com", so any local address associated with
that domain, even if you just "made it up", is almost ceratin to generate
spam for someone totally unaware that you posted their email address in
Usenet.

Use an invalid RHS (right-hand-side) domain such as example if your email
client demands an email address.

 

[Greg Russell]

I wrote:

....

Use an invalid RHS (right-hand-side) domain such as example if your
email client demands an email address.

That should be "such as example.com".

 

[C]

It's spam and *not* from MS. As 'strange' as MS can be sometimes, they
will *not* share your email address with 3rd parties if you choose that
option.

Not true. I opened a Hotmail account years ago and never gave it to
anyone. I use it to see how my template emails look in Hotmail. All
these years, I received nothing in that account. A couple of months ago
I signed on to download Win 7 Enterprise and unticked everything that
could remotely be conceived as permission to share my email address.
Since then, I have receive at least ten spam emails a day for everything
from Viagra to the Nigerian scam to penis enlargement. I also get
regular spam messages from Microsoft itself.

 

[John]

I signed up. I'm waiting for the gift cerItificate in addition to the
fraction of several million US$ from a Nigerian prince. I can finally retire
early. How cool is that? The internet is so awesome!

 

[John]

You've just joe jobbed toni24. Some poor fella with that address may be
suffering from your action, if the address exists.

 

[Twayne]

In

...

No, I haven't

If (e-mail address removed) isn't YOUR address, it IS someone's address, so chances
are excellent you have just exposed an innocent bystander to the world to
get spam. That's a very rude and abhorrant practice and you need to consider
stopping it immediately. If toni24 should come across your admission, I can
only guess what they'll do for you re spam or reputation.

Please grow up and get an address that's intended for such use. Do NOT make
up names. You can always use (e-mail address removed) or one of the thousands of
others maintained for just this specific use.

 

[Greg Russell]

In

If (e-mail address removed) isn't YOUR address, it IS someone's address, so
chances are excellent you have just exposed an innocent bystander to
the world to get spam. That's a very rude and abhorrant practice and
you need to consider stopping it immediately.

But it's alright for *you* to once again expose that innocent bystander?
Hypocrite ...

 

[Lem]

In

But it's alright for *you* to once again expose that innocent bystander?
Hypocrite ...

So *you* think that yyyyy.con (with an "n") is a valid domain?

 

[Bob I]

So *you* think that yyyyy.con (with an "n") is a valid domain?

Greg munged it, Twayne didn't.

 

[Unknown]

He changed a possible valid address to an invalid address. Why do you ask
such a question??

 

[Lem]

Greg munged it, Twayne didn't.

I stand corrected.

 

[Greg Russell]

In

So *you* think that yyyyy.con (with an "n") is a valid domain?

No, I don't ... the enitre point of this exercise is to *NOT* use a valid
domain when munging ones email address. That way, when the spammers harvest
email addresses from Usenet, the invalid domains just generate useless,
non-routable traffic for the spammers' smtp transactions instead of
"joe-jobbing" any innocent bystander as the OP has the likelihood of having
done.

"Let's put on our thinking caps" seems to be a valid admonishment for such a
response as yours.