[whateverdudes]

It's often called plus addressing. Quite a common feature in mail servers and mail services. MyName+<any-random-text> at gmail.com ends up in MyName's mailbox.

[apetresc]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Surely anyone savvy enough to be dealing in black-market e-mail address lists is savvy enough to just remove everything after the + sign?

[whateverdudes]

Probably yes. The software I'm using supports configuring the character per domain, so I can use say . instead of +, so I could use [e-mail] which I assume would solve that.

[dastbe]

You never use the bare address. If it gets stripped then it gets binned.

[gruez]

Works well until you encounter a service that thinks you can't have pluses in emails

[paulgb]

What do 'bare address', 'stripped', and 'binned' mean in this context?

[mod]

I don't agree with him, but he means you never use the email address without a "+service" in it.

Then, if the spammer strips (removes) that part, it gets sent to the trash (binned).