Drowning in spam

[AudioFox]

Just from curiosity, have you ever had this (http://h1.ripway.com/ONYXPRDNS/spam.png) happen to you? Even though I don't give out my email adress to seedy organizations or scratch it onto the bathroom walls at truck stops this still happens about once a year. Suddenly, seven or eight totally useless spam messages per day from a random assortment of fake names advertising everything from generic Viagra to Ethiopian kiddie porn start flooding in, and don't ever stop until you change your address. Damn Hotmail!

[Freston]

I have a theory that they take your email address from those annoying chainmails your friends keep sending you. Some store your address in flat text in the message even though you yourself don't forward it. Nobody knows where such a mail may end up.

[techieMoe]

As soon as I registered my domain name I noticed an uptick in spam. I'm a little disappointed at the lack of variety though. It used to be I'd get 2 or 3 viagra, bootleg rolex, or "watch my webcam" spams. Lately every single one I get is a variation on penis enlargement. Where's the variety?

[elija]

Well, I keep getting offered Breast Enlargement. Which could be
considered funny

[Cabhan]

GMail's spam filter is fantabulous, so I don't really notice it.

One thing that I did do well was to make my website not display my e-mail address anywhere. My contact page is a form, which submits to a PHP script that sends the e-mail to me. It is impossible for any spider or user to actually see my address.

[Farmer Mike]

For the longest time, the spammers couldn't figure out which demographic I belong to. I was getting ads for infant care products and viagra at the same time.

I suppose I appreciate the vote of confidence, but after raising two teenagers, I only want to care for the dogs and cats.

[Jonathan183]

Touch wood ... I have never received spam for the home email. The spam-manager for the work e-mail address is kept fairly busy though.
Having said that I don't have a website and usually try to avoid giving e-mail info.

Ed: having made the first statement I may as well change the home e-mail to please@spam-me.com !

[questio verum]

I opened a hotmail account after mailmasher pancaked, and used it as my primary email account for years. Then, when they flushed 9 years of archives for no reason, I had that moment that every ms customer eventually has. That they had the audacity to deny it, told me everything I needed to know.

I received a gmail account during the beta. After the hotmail debacle, I directed all my mail to gmail and haven't looked back. Spam filtering has been flawless. I wish it had better folder management, but that's minor really.

qv

[darkrose0510]

I stopped using hotmail/yahoo or any of the free email accounts about a year ago, now I only use email via my own domains and mail server. I think I've received 2 maybe 3 spam emails since, everything else gets filtered out on the server.

[techieMoe]

I use Gmail. I generally get 2 or 3 spams every couple of days, and 9 out of 10 of them end up in Gmail's "spam" folder so I don't notice them all that much. I concur that Gmail's spam filters are pretty good.