E-mail Address Harvesting is the process of obtaining lists of e-mail addresses using various methods for use in bulk e-mail or spamming. There is no need fo rus to emphasize on the growing menace of spamming and how they can threaten your Online Security.

And talking about Twitter – it is the new language of web. It is the new place to chill around, to hang out, to search, to live report and what not. The possiblities and uses are endless.

But there are always two faces of the coin. And Twitter is no exception. As the popularity of the Twitter is increasing, so are the ways to abuse it.

Recently I found that a simple trick can be used to harvest Email Address from Twitter, which are live and current.

Look at the screenshot below. It has been taken by throwing a simple Twitter search query “@gmail.com OR @yahoo.com OR “email me at”at http://search.twitter.com.

twitter-email-harvesting

Spammers has to write a simple script, which just refreshes the query after a specified time period and harvest fresh and valid email addresses.

Above was a simple query. If the spammer wants to harvest email addresses related to some specific keyword, then you just have to modify the search query to include the keyword. For instance:

Job Seeker: @gmail.com OR @yahoo.com OR “email me at” job

Dating Partner seekers: @gmail.com OR @yahoo.com OR “email me at” dating

The possibilities are endless.

Can You Hold Twitter Responsible for it?

No way. Ju.t read their TOS. It says…

You are solely responsible for your conduct and any data, text, information, screen names, graphics, photos, profiles, audio and video clips, links (“Content”) that you submit, post, and display on the Twitter.com service.

Bottom Line: So the next time you are going to tweet your email address, be extremely cautious. You never know, what is lying ahead.