Does AIM leak my personal info in some way?

[cometbus]

Ok, this has me buggered :-)
I have a IM address that I use privaltely, no one knows it but 2 people. Today, I got a random IM from some one askign me why I was on their buddy list. Somehow, they managed to get my private IM address.

In our chats, we did find that he had emailed me as a result of a post on a artists forum where I was looking to hire an artist.

I never gave him anything more than my email address. So how, does AIM somehow, put me on his buddy list just because he emailed me? I assume this guy is a aol.com users, and in their little world, but this seems a little strange to me.

[jstamos]

You can find someone's AIM screen name using their e-mail address. That's about all I can come up with.

[cometbus]

How do you do that, do you need an official AIM client to do so?

[MacMom]

You can set AIM's Account Settings to prevent someone from finding anything about you from your email address. Go to "Privacy" and under "Information Availability" select "With my e-mail address users can learn: Nothing at all about me."

[cometbus]

Macmom, I can do this in adium, or I have to use the AIM client?

[MacMom]

I did it in the AIM client. As far as I know, you can't do it in Adium.

[jstamos]

It requires the official client.

[Adam Iser]

So how, does AIM somehow, put me on his buddy list just because he emailed me? I assume this guy is a aol.com users, and in their little world, but this seems a little strange to me.

Yes, actually. Last I checked AOL automatically added recognized email contacts to the buddy list in a 'recent buddies' kind of group.

I haven't used AOL in a while though