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I recently ( just before around 3-4 days) bought a domain name from namecheap with privacy protection. Assume that domain is example.com

There was an email on spam folder today.

  • From : domains@regsitesearch.com
  • Title : Domain Notification for EXAMPLE.COM : This is your Final Notice of Domain Listing

How spammer found that example.com is a my website?

Note : Otherthan Google Webmaster tools and Analytics, I have not submitted my website for any other third party service.

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    Can you confirm that this message was not relayed?! since many whois guards will attach a ID number e.g 2393@whoisguard.co.uk which will forward to your email address, this does not expose your email address unless you reply to the email, some domains require webmasters to be contactable. Check the header of the email received what is the mail-to: sent-from: and the reply-to: address.
    – Simon Hayter
    Oct 11 '17 at 12:00
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    Is the contact email address on the domain registration unrelated to the domain that's been registered?
    – MrWhite
    Oct 11 '17 at 14:05
  • @SimonHayter I checked the header. From: Domain Notice <domains@regsitesearch.com>, To: WhoisGuard Protected <828ae42 bla bla .protect@whoisguard.com>
    – I am the Most Stupid Person
    Oct 12 '17 at 4:11
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    So, they don't have your email. They are emailing you through the whoisguard, everything is working as intended. If you don't want those emails, do not use a important email address. ICCAN and other domain registerars are clear that webmasters must be contactable, so even who whois protection, doesn't mean your uncontactable. It's to prevent your address and real email being displayed and stored in a spam directory.
    – Simon Hayter
    Oct 12 '17 at 8:55
  • @SimonHayter Thank you for the explanation. So that means if any one send a email to 828ae42 bla bla .protect@whoisguard.com, is it automatically forward to the my email address? [And why gmail think that it is a spam email?]
    – I am the Most Stupid Person
    Oct 12 '17 at 9:24
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Even with privacy protection I believe there is a small delay between the Whois Database and ICANN registration where someone's info is publicly available.

Spammers harvest that info as new registrations happen. Its common with all registrations of .com TLD's especially, regardless of registrars.

Irritating and highly discussed around the web, but unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

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  • This is not true and ICANN has nothing to do technically in this issue. Especially for .COM which is still thin for now, so the registry has no contact data, it only appears on registrar whois, which is capable of immediately showing protected email adresses (supposing the registrar knows how to do its job)
    – Patrick Mevzek
    Oct 12 '17 at 0:36
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Was the email sent to your email address or was it sent to generic@domain.com, which was then forwarded to your email address?

Many spammers will just hammer your domain with emails at any generic string they can think of, until they get hits.

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  • yeah, I agree with the generic email addresses like contact@domain.com, admin@domain.com, etc. They're usually the target of spam emails and such.
    – BryrDe
    Oct 12 '17 at 6:32

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