Reply #12: That's exactly what I do ... [View All]

But I use Yahoo, which has a spam filter that puts all "questionable" email into a bulk folder so you can review it. If it's not spam, you can make sure that particular sender doesn't get caught in the filter again by clicking the "It's not spam" button. On the other hand, if spam does get through to your inbox, you can click the "This is spam" button and that sender will always be routed to the Bulk Mail folder.

But "Democrats unite" is right - don't ever use your "main" email address for newsletters, mailing lists, web site registration, etc. You can't change that address and even if you could, it's too much trouble because your friends, family and business contacts have that address.

Occasionally, a web site may require a "permanent" email address, meaning they won't except registration from a Hotmail or Yahoo email address. So I set up a secondary email address with my ISP. (I'm allowed to have 5 of them). The address is legitimate, it's permanent ... and it's still not my main address, so just in case a web site decides to pass it on and I get swamped with spam, I can always delete it and create another email account with my ISP. :-)