Tech Republic lost or sold my email address

In the past couple days, I have started getting a bunch of new spam that makes it through gmail's filters. It's mostly from sites where I have established a relationship on purpose, but the email is unwelcome. I am normally very good about opting out of ads, updates, or whatever upon registration. I try to give a unique email address to each site I register with, so I know where spam is coming from. This isn't always possible. At any rate, I noticed that my old email address gets most of my spam.

The sites that are most annoying are ZDNet/TechRepublic, Barnes and Noble, NewEgg, and Verizon. I occasionally see email from other sites as well (even amazon!).

So, when you subscribe to any site, make sure to UNcheck those quirky boxes asking to send you junk email.

Who controls my email?

I recently had a conversation with my brother about online data services. For example, my email account is with google (gmail). I've read some articles pointing out the risks of storing your data on a server or website you don't own.

Here's something I said to him, he wanted me to post on this blog:

"If I'm not paying for my email, someone else is--which means they're the primary stakeholder and they're primarily in control of how my data is used."

Experts have basically said the same thing in different words, but the principle is clear: if you get something for free, it's not really free. What is the real cost to you, and is that cost really visible? How is my email data being used by google, and do I really have a way to know how it's being used?