Slashdot Mirror
Hotmail Launches Accounts You Can Throw Away
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Today, Hotmail is getting a new feature aimed at 'e-mail enthusiasts,' which lets anyone create multiple e-mail accounts that can be read, replied to, and managed from their everyday e-mail inbox. These additional e-mail addresses can be had in the same manner as signing up for new accounts, but they require no extra log-ins or upkeep. ... The idea is to give users a safe way to provide third parties with an e-mail address, without giving up the address they've provided to family and friends, which, if compromised, can end the usefulness of that particular account. Each user will be able to create up to five aliases, any of which can be deleted and replaced with another at any time. Over time, Microsoft will increase that limit to 15 aliases per account, making it so that the true heavy users won't need to juggle between two or more Hotmail accounts."
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=69570
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
While not exactly an implementation of a throwaway address, you can use plus sign addressing (subaddressing, i.e. name+slashdot@gmail.com) with Google. I use it for every site I sign up on so I can see who gives out my email address so I can filter everything from that alias into the trash.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
I've encountered several sites that do not allow a + in the email address, or come even remotely close to implementing the RFC.
This is a worthwhile read and the regex was fun to implement. http://haacked.com/archive/2007/08/21/i-knew-how-to-validate-an-email-address-until-i.aspx
I've used it elsewhere but integrated into a client like hotmail is a good idea. Besides, I already use hotmail for my spam address. Now Google, steal this please.
Gmail already has had this feature for a long time. it's called plus-addressing. You take your e-mail address, put a plus sign at the end of it and then add a phrase. For example:
All of these will get sent to foobar@google.com and you can create a filter on each term (eg: filter on +slashdot) to send them into their own mailbox.
Sapere aude!
There is actually a patent on something like this. AT&T developed it a long time ago, sat on it for a decade, then sold the patent to Zoemail (a now-defunct Internet startup) in the early 2000s, which then sold the patent to someone else. The advantage of the Zoemail/AT&T approach was that the "keyed" addresses would be created to each recipient you sent to, and they would know you by that keyed e-mail, but you could turn those off whenever you wanted. Or give them expiration dates. The keyed address would be listed in your address book with each recipient.
It was a beautiful concept, frankly, but could have been implemented better.
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Do you mean the catchall? If so, yeah I do it too and love it.
You get *@yourdomain forwarded to your inbox. Then you just make one rule in your filters. In the "has the words" box for filter creation, you put deliveredto:({[one],[two],[three],[four]})
One, two, three, and four being @yourdomain "accounts" that are abandoned due to spam. Just tell gmail to send those directly to the trash, which keeps your spambox empty.
It doesn't get any better than that. No need to create new email addresses, they all already exist. Just filter out the ones that start causing you trouble.