[genewitch]

maybe i can write a whatthreewords style "email identity mapper" so you put in "walmart.com" and it spits out "[e-mail]" and "autozone rewards" yields "[e-mail]"

then if you start getting spammed, you use the w3w style thing to reverse it and see what site/entity sold your email...

then all of the "this doesn't/won't work because they'll just spam the entire domain" arguments go away, the "no, your email address" style comments go away...

[greengreengrass]

Good thought experiment! Makes it hard to remember the correct address for each site, but meh, that's the job of my password manager anyway.

[genewitch]

one wouldn't have to remember. if the address you gave out using the w3w-style encoder starts getting spammed, you can reverse it with the w3w-style decoder.

you'd need an app or a mnemonic device of some sort if you wanted to give an email out in public as opposed to sitting at a computer. but ideally on the computer when you notice spam you just reverse the email address back to who you gave it to; "target.com", "kroger.com"