Receiving Spam Since SL Signup

When I signed up for SL about a month ago I opened a new email account for my SL name with earthlink. The email .com that I use is a company acquired and run by earthlink so new accounts can only be added by existing account holders. I have this new account and three others at that .com. I used the new account only to receive emails from SL support and blog. I gave the account to nobody except SL. Recently I have begun to receive three to four spam emails per day on this account from names such as Rodrick Evelyn, Fair, Lyons. The same spams were not received on any of my other accounts. Therefore I can only surmise that somehow the spammers got my email address from SL.

I don't expect SL to readily acknowledge that somehow email addresses are getting out to spammers. Does anyone else have a segregated email account where they can tell if they have had a similar experience? The key word is a segregated account--used only for SL.

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I can't seem to reply to Blue Linden's reply to my original message so I will reply here. I get a message that I don't have priveleges to reply to Blue Linden. I use Zone Alarm and AdWatch and AdAware. Not only that my local high speed ISP has a strong firewall. If it were a virus or spyware it would affect all of my accounts--three with earthlink and two with the local ISP. I only receive that spam on the one account that is dedicated to SL. Not only that, there are only three or four business Web Sites that are ever visited on this computer. There is no casual surfing to pickup virus and spyware. The evidence still points to SL whether or not you give out addresses--someone is taking them.

Linden Lab will not give out your address.

Sadly, there are several ways in which spammers can get even unused email addresses. Becuse this can be done via certain types of viruses, it's advised that you run anti-virus software and a firewall, and keep them updated. Personally I've had very good luck with Zone Alarm.