[id10t]

Clicking the link only lets them know your address is real and actually looked at. Makes it more valuable next time they sell it.

What I do is run my own mail but many other providers support this to some degree or another. Anyway, I use "address extensions" (RFC5233) and so every company I do business with gets their own unique email. IE id10t+pelicanparts@mydomain

GMail supports this BUT messages only go to "all mail" - not your inbox.

Another gmail trick is that they ignore . in addresses, so some.user@gmail is the same as so.me.us.er@gmail - you can maybe play with that one.

One thing to be aware of with the + extension thing is that some dumb front end designers don't know RFC822 and what really make a potentially valid email address and so there are lots of broken validators out there... so I use a - instead of a + on my domain's config.


When I start getting spam (my local tax collector and florida fish/game licenses are the top guilty ones) I can start having fun l like sending rejects, or my personal favorite is to look up the CEO etc. of the guilty company that sold my info or got hacked and redirect all the email to them.