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MAILBOXES FOR SPAM

What? What wants spam? Certainly no one I know. However, getting it is a foregone conclusion for most of us. One way to manage it is to read some reviews and download a good spam filter (the one native to any MS products you are using is, as you may know, no good). Another way is to open up an account with an free online provider, then give out this email freely while only providing your 'non spam' account to friends and family.

Here's an example: You go to an online store and want to buy something or want to get their latest newsletter detailing the 10 best ways to keep your cat's teeth clean - a new issue sent to your inbox every month! But you don't know the people who run the site, or you are very tired of checking the privacy policy at each site - and you know it may be a bogus policy anyway. So now you just give out your spam address, and only check it when you're expecting an email about an order you've placed for a fancy new cat toothbrush, or when your cat's teeth need cleaning and you need that newsletter straight away.

I've successfully kept three or four email addresses free of spam for more than five years with this method. The email address I've posted in the feedback section is (oh, but how this will sound very geeky to some of you) a partial-spam address... meaning I use it for those sites and people I think I can trust - like yourself - and I don't have to sweat it if I'm wrong. So, I check it more often than a straight spam address. Hierarchies and tiering systems are important topics in network admininstration, y'know.