Forget NSA, how do Target, a motel, & whoever find my e-addy I didn't provide them?

[MineralMan]

1. Everyone who has your email address most likely sells it.

Your email provider actively markets it. Many businesses sell customer information to other businesses. Look at the privacy statements of places where you've provided your email to sign up, order, or whatever. Any website, for example, that makes you sign up using your email address as your user name is very likely selling your email address, along with other information, to most anyone who will pay for it.

Every time you use your email online as your user name or provide it to any business online, you're giving them something marketable. Go look at the privacy statements for the websites. You'll see. They freely disclose their policies, but almost nobody reads them. People just click the "Yes, I have read your Terms of Service" box so they can get on with whatever it is they are doing. Go read what you didn't read, and you'll see that you agreed to let them sell your email address. No brainer.