I understand that you received an actual email. I got one also.

But let me try to explain in more detail how this works because I want to make it clear that your email address IS private and confidential when you register an account on calfishing.com

Overview: The dcforum software that calfishing.com uses for the message boards has a private message feature. You may enable or disable this functionality in the user menu under 'edit your preference'. Here is the specific option:

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/3968-pm_system.jpg

When someone sends you a private message using this system, you'll get a little notification at the top of the forum telling you that you have a new message in your inbox. You may also get an email notification that you have a message. Whether you get an email or not is determined by this setting which is also in the user menu under 'edit your preference'

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/3967-notify.jpg

When you get this notification that you have a private message, it is sent by the server usining sendmail. The person who sends you the private message DOES NOT have the ability to view your email address. This system is in place to prevent spammers from using spider software to harvest email addresses from the forum. I would never run forum software where your email address is displayed because I hate spam and the people who send it.

I am going to file a request with the software developer to limit the number of private messages that a single user can send in a given time period so try to reduce this problem in the future. As time consuming as it is to register an account with a real email address, get the confirmation email, log in, and then manually go through and spam people using the private message system, someone obviously has the spare time to do it. So again, I apologize for the inconvenience and you have my assurance that I will do whatever I can to eliminate problems like this in the future.