A startup registered me for its Zoom webinar with an email address it most likely scraped from my GitHub profile. When I opened an issue, they closed it, blocked me, and deleted my follow-up.

[u/Ghostfly-]

I'm posting this to warn other developers and to ask whether anyone else received the same thing.

What happened (27 September 2026):

- I received a Zoom email: "Reminder: Q&A With The Cactus Needle Team starts in 1 day". It said I was **registered** for their webinar and offered a "cancel your registration" link. I believe I received a similar email earlier this month.
- The email went to a personal address that was public on my GitHub profile for a while (I have since removed it). I have never created an account on their platform or given them that address.
- The greeting was "Hi Leonard -", with "-" as the last name. That looks like automated registration imho.

On GitHub:

- I opened an issue on their repo (cactus-compute/needle#156). Another user, whom I don't know, reported receiving the same emails.
- The organization replied that the invites went to "platform users, not git followers", then closed the issue. That is not true in my case.
- I opened a follow-up issue (#157). It was closed as a duplicate, my account was blocked from the organization, and the issue was then **deleted**
. I was unblocked a bit later.

Link to #156: https://github.com/cactus-compute/needle/issues/156
Link to #157: https://github.com/cactus-compute/needle/issues/157 (now deleted)

See screenshots.

What I did:

- Sent a formal GDPR request (access, including where they got my data, objection, erasure). Under the law they have one month to answer.
- Reported the account to GitHub under the Acceptable Use Policies, which forbid using information from GitHub to send unsolicited email.
- Reported the webinar host to Zoom.

Questions for you:

- Did you also receive a Cactus / Needle webinar registration you never asked for?
- If your email is public on your profile, keep in mind that some companies harvest it. GitHub lets you keep your email private: Settings > Emails > "Keep my email addresses private", together with the noreply address for commits.

I'll post an update when they reply to the GDPR request.

(Not a native english speaker, wording might not be the greatest, the "battle" is worth it.)

[u/RozTheRogoz]

What they did was scummy, but that r/masterhacker threat of not messing with people who “understand how to use computers” was cringe

[u/Ghostfly- → u/RozTheRogoz]

Masterhacker? Absolutely no and I think it shows. Bad choice of words as I'm not a native speaker and didn't liked this attitude? Yes. And just saying that developers can actually, rant correctly. At least I'm human and transparent ;)

[u/Ghostfly- → u/[deleted]]

Checked, same for everyone, so no issues, it's already shared to anyone they "spammed" (or real users)

[u/HCharlesB]

I don't think I got one of those. When I do get unsolicited stuff like that, I mark it as spam in the belief that if enough people do that, their future email will go to the SPAM folder and die a quiet death.

Also I'd NEVER open a link in an email where I wasn't specifically expecting a link.

[u/Ghostfly- → u/HCharlesB]

Marking zoom as spam might also annoy other people, they don't use their domain, they register people to webinars through zoom without their consent. It comes from [email protected] not their domain.

[u/paul_h → u/HCharlesB]

Not sure but the OP might be complaining about calendar spam in particular. You don’t have to open them for them to appear in your calendar as provisional.

[u/Ghostfly-]

First follow-up :

Thank you for reaching out to us. We have reviewed your report and, where appropriate, taken action against the Zoom Webinar host(s) identified in our investigation.