[HairOfTheDog]

I use my cable provider's email address, and get virtually no spam.

I am careful about what I sign up for, but I have made plenty of purchases and registered at plenty of websites, including cheesy game sites that I would think would be the first to sell my address. I still get virtually no spam, only a few newsletters I did sign up for.

Is this a problem only with free email addresses? I have been told no, but I just really suspect that Spam, especially explicit spam, comes from visiting those places!

[new cruelty]

I have been told no, but I just really suspect that Spam, especially explicit spam, comes from visiting those places!

lol, my mother-in-law has some 'splaning to do.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Spam these days come from flooding known mail servers with common user names... they play the numbers game hoping some of it will get through. Mail that is not bounced is noted as being good, and that is how they build their databases. Those databases are sold to other mailers and before you know it you are flooded with spam.

[Question_Assumptions]

If you ever put your email address out on the internet or on a web site, it can wind up on a spammer's list. I can often detect spam simply because I get two copies (sent to two different email addresses that forward to my current one) or because they are sent to old addresses or machines that forward into my current email. If you don't advertise your email, you can avoid a lot of spam.

[k2blader]

The first year I used my cable provider's email address I received *no* spam whatsoever, due to the fact that I gave out that address only to trusted friends.

However, it took only one person to screw it all up.

Basically, a fellow cable customer tried to sign up for my email address despite the fact that it was already registered (to me, of course). Thinking that my email address was now hers, this person then distributed my email to her friends and family and also used it at several websites. My inbox got hit time and time again with email from strange people and annoying e-vendors. Fortunately, one of the emails I received included the phone number of the woman who started the whole mess. I called her, explained I was getting all her email, and asked her to take care of it on her end. She must have eventually gotten her own email address because email from her friends and family stopped arriving ... but the stupid spam still came.

Then there was the incident involving a friend who didn't tell me until it was too late that her MS Outlook Express got infected by a spam-inducing internet worm.

So I guess the lesson to learn here is: Be *exceedingly* careful whom you give your email address. Barring freakish events of cyberspace, this should keep one's inbox fairly spam-free.

I've always used an easily replaceable, spam-blockable Hotmail addy at sites which demand an email address in order to be viewed.

[Ramius]

We're using: http://www.postini.com

Pure magic.