Ideas for Fighting Spam

Here's a technique that I have been using for several years now that has served me well...

1) Get your own domain name and host it with a basic CPanel account with POP email

2) Turn on the "black hole" option that trashes all email that is sent to unlisted addresses, like the commonly spammed "admin@mydomain.com" or "webmaster@mydomain.com" addresses

3) Create an email POP account that you will use as a catch-all for web services
for example: "stuff@mydomain.com"

4) Everytime you sign up with a new website, use that website's name in the email you give them.
for example: at myspace you would use "myspace@mydomain.com"

5) Create a forwarding order in CPanel and forward the new myspace email address to your catch-all address
like this: forward "myspace@mydomain.com" >> "stuff@mydomain.com"

6) Create a separate POP account for your personal email and never use it on a website, forum, chatroom or online store. Only give it out to trusted friends who aren't stupid enough to forward you email chain letters.
for example: "myname@mydomain.com"

That's it! Now you have a personal email account that will remain spamless if your friends are smart, and you have a generic catch-all email account to forward messages to every time you sign up with a new service. Whether it's

myspace@mydomain.com
yahoo@mydomain.com
ebay@mydomain.com
amazon@mydomain.com

...or whatever...just create forwarders to your catch-all address each time you create a new account at one of these websites. Sure, it sounds funny when you tell someone at enterprise rental car that your email is "enterprise @mydomain.com", but it will save you lots of headaches in the long run. You are setting up not only a spam fighting technique, but an email tracking tool, as well.

So if one of these websites gives out your email address, and you start receiving junk mail addressed to "myspace@mydomain.com", then you know that myspace was the one that sold you out. So you delete the "myspace@mydomain.com" forwarder and -*bingo*- no more junk mail.

Just be sure not to respond to anything or send mail with your catch-all account or you may expose it to spam. If you absolutely need to respond to a website via your catch-all account, you should temporarily change the "from" address in your email program to match the company you are responding to before you send it (so that your response to myspace comes from myspace@mydomain.com" and not the catch-all address.)

Hope this works for you!