John in Remote Kansas, first I must say that I've never received SPAM in response to a Mudcat posting, so I'm a little surprised by your post. And I frequently put a link to my email address (I don't use the actual address in print due to the 'crawler' programs used by many Spammers) in a post. Of course, if your email address was accessed through Mudcat, it could be done by any member reading this thread, not just those who have posted to it.

If you go to the membership link, you'll note that you can opt not to have your email address public to other Mudcatters. I agree that unsolicited advertising sent to you could be an abuse of membership and, if you can identify the sender, you might PM him/her to try to solve the problem, then report the incident to Max if you can't reach a solution.

Just out of curiosity - you say you're using another's cookie. If that's so, how did a member get YOUR email address?