I believe that every one got emails from West African or Nigerian, claiming there is large amount of money for you to pick up, almost for free. The ABC reports that a Sydney man has been sentenced to more than five years in jail for defrauding millions of dollars in an international email scam. See full story here.

We all have probably experienced using e-mail programs which provide auto-complete features. So if I were sending an email to Bob Smith and wasn’t paying enough attention there is a high possibility that I could send that email to Joe Smith. This is a problem since we not only reveal the other person’s email-address but now we can associate them to where they work as well. There are of course many ways we can prevent such problems from occuring. Some of them are mentioned in the article below.
E-mail poses privacy problems

During an election campaign most individuals when making contributions freely give out contact information that include name, address, e-mail address, phone, credit card information. How much are the privacy rights of contributors or supporters respected in the use of personal information obtained during elections?

Current Louisiana treasurer, John Kennedy’s web site says, “We will not sell personal information provided through this Web site to unrelated third-parties.” Many people raised questions as to who are these “unrelated third parties?” The privacy policy on that website definitely needs to be updated. For more information please read: Louisiana Elections and Politics: Campaigns, e-mail and privacy