The +aliases do work if you’re using google apps for email with your own domain.

At the receiving end everything goes into the catch-all bucket and I see it all. If anyone abuses the address and sends spam, I simply make a rule to move emails sent TO that particular name into the trash. For example if this site sells my address to Nigerian ‘entrepreneurs’, I can make a rule that moves anything sent to ‘thesimpledollar@mydomain.com’ into the trash. I also know that The Simple Dollar just sold my address, and know who to complain to.

This is great for logins. Most sites use or accept email address for their usernames, and I always know or can guess my username even for sites I’ve forgotten I ever registered at. At Amazon, for instance, my username is ‘amazon@mydomain.com’.

There’s an anti-phishing benefit too: if some crook sends a “please review your PayPal account information” email, and it’s not sent to ‘paypal@mydomain.com’, I know immediately it’s a fake.

Each email addr can be routed to a folder, and can be configured to be in-only or in/out (i.e. you can send email out using that address). You can also delete any of these addresses or create new ones at any time. If you start getting spam on one, just delete it.

I typically create a new email addr for every site, business, or mailing list I sign up for.

I’d like to see a blog post about finding coupons on the web, and solicit folks to comment on their own experiences. I usually have very bad luck with online coupons. Most of the sites returned by google are not actual coupons or even coupon sites – they are additional search engines which search for coupons, and they often don’t return any results.

If I do get to a coupon for a store, it usually is very specific about what it will cover or how much else you have to buy to use the coupon. Since I have already done all my research and chosen exactly what I want to buy, the coupons usually don’t apply to me.

I just wondered what experiences other folks have had and if I am the only one who doesn’t get good results.

1) If you give the +deals address to all retailers, and all of a sudden one of those retailers starts mailing to your actual address (sans the plus), it’ll be pretty easy to figure out who, and you can either stop doing business with an untrustworthy, spammy company, or you can contact them to ask why they changed your address and request they change it back.

2) If the company sells your address and an actual spammer starts using it, you can’t catch them that way. But Gmail, for me, has been very, very good at catching actual spam (as opposed to legitimate retailers I sign up for). In a few years of having a Gmail account, I can remember maybe a few occasions where actual spam has been sent through unchecked. So you might be covered there.

If you really wanted to go all out, you could do what Jeremy or gumnos said, and just make up a new one for every retailer. You’re at Sears and they ask? Sure, it’s [myemail]+sears@gmail.com. You’re at Barnes and Noble? It’s [myemail]+bn@gmail.com.

This debate reminds me of the one about clicking ads on your favorite website to give a “tip” to the owner of the website. Some argue it’s a great thing to do, other argue it’s harmful because when you don’t actually buy anything from the advertiser, they realize their ad isn’t working, and pull it.

For now it really depends on your perspective. Eventually the online advertising industry will evolve and we probably won’t have to debate this.

You can whitelist email addresses so you get more then 20 from that one, and can reset the count (either up or down). That way if you sign up for something and they sell your email onwards, you can simply shut that account down and all further emails will be eaten.

This way you don’t have to set up new email accounts, and can filter what you do and do not want to see :)

Hannah – why do I have to keep the clerk happy? What rule of business transactions says that is needed? All you’re doing is perpetuating the cycle of tactics that are bad for the consumer.

Keep in mind that it DOES NOT work for Google Apps for Your Domain. But there’s an easy work around for that: Go into the control panel and you can setup “nicknames”. So instead of giving them trent@hamm.com, you tell them retailers@hamm.com and it all goes to trent@hamm.com

Rather than just turning down the clerk at your favorite store when they ask for your email or phone number, keep in mind that they are often expected to meet quotas for collecting your info. This practice sucks, in my opinion, but if you want to help a friendly clerk out, give them a fake number and a modified email address and everybody’s happy.