[oh_sigh]

Simply filter all email to a non-plus address to spam, and then only give out random [e-mail] addresses. Now, if a spammer strips it off, they just get put directly into your spam box. Where stupid regexes don't like the plus, you have the . allowance for gmail, where foobar@gmail, f.oobar@, f.o.obar@, foob.a.r@, etc all get routed to the first address. gmail lets you have up to 30 character user names, so you can encode 2^28 = ~268M unique emails into that. But those sites are very rare.

[logicallee]

1. Out of curiosity, do you actually do this? (The first part you propose.)

2. As a theoretical solution it is a bit weaker than the "simple" solution I think Google should obviously do, because under your proposal different spammers can coordinate, invalidating your privacy. (You didn't tell two different unrelated sites that you're the same person, but actually you are, which they could build into a targeted profile if they coordinate or, for example, are owned by the same parent company.) Granted this is a theoretical concern but it is there.

[oh_sigh]

Not exactly - a little more complex actually.

I have two emails: [e-mail] which is only handed out to people I know in real life...I've had this one since 2004 and I still get zero unwanted emails on that address. Then, I have another address, [e-mail] which mass forwards all mail to my super_private email, which then filters it according to the rules I've set up.

The reason I have the extra layer of indirection is because it wouldn't by very user friendly to force someone you know to email you with a plus sign and then some junk. This way I can give a 'normal' email address to normal people, and my filtering email address to auto signups and things like that.

2. You're right - I guess I'm not too worried about a profile being built for me, but this definitely would not handle that issue. I also use anonymous remailers like getnada.com if I am signing up for something which I think is particularly embarrassing if it gets out, but that is rare.

[logicallee]

thanks. I also have set up forwarding on some gmails. it's a bit of a pain.