Apparently it could – at least according to research by Richard Clayton, a security expert from Cambridge University’s computer lab.Most of us tend to assume that spammers focus on the right-hand side of our email addresses – the part after the @. That’s why big companies and webmail services have to filter out so much junk email: a spammer can try it on with zillions of potential victims in one swoop, simply by throwing everything they’ve got at any @hotmail.com address.However, it turns out that spammers could be more subtle creatures than we give them credit for.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/28/spam.emailReport: Email Address Dictates Spam Volume
Everyone knows that some people get more spam than others, but new research shows that it may have something to do with the first letter of your email address.Richard Clayton, a security researcher at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., says he found evidence that the more common the first letter in your email address is, the more spam you get: in other words, alice@company.com typically gets a higher volume of spam than quincy@company.com, or zach@company.com. He says that’s simply because there are more combinations of names that begin with “A” than with “Q” or “Z.”
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=162585
Does my name affect how much spam I get?
Apparently it could – at least according to research by Richard Clayton, a security expert from Cambridge University’s computer lab.