I can see where a host would not enjoy someone constantly updating their disable list (black list). For myself I do my own hosting so I only have myself to bother!

-Tim

I can see where a host would not enjoy someone constantly updating their disable list (black list). For myself I do my own hosting so I only have myself to bother!

-Tim

By enabling a catch-all account I can create "throw-away" email addresses on the fly, much like how credit card companies can now issue you a temporary credit card number good for a few hours. Whenever I register on a website I can create an email address for use only on that site. So if I register for an account at amazon.com I would tell them my email address is amazon@mydomain.com. The catch-all system delivers that email directly to me with no setup.

These "throw-away" addresses also make it easy to filter my incoming mail into the appropriate boxes in my email client. I can simply filter by who the email was sent "to" and have a rule that works 100% of the time.

However the best use of the catch-all is the fact that I can discard any address as necessary. If a website decides to sell my email address to a sp@mmer I will instantly know which company sold me out by the address the email is sent to. Likewise if an address gets harvested I can discard the address as well.

Furthermore I can then tell my Xserve (server) to refuse messages sent to the address the sp@mmers now have. I also refuse messages to common usernames such as sales@, webmaster@, info@, etc. About two years ago I would get about 200 sp@ms per day; due to these techniques I am now down to about 2 per month. That's not a typo.

As Rich suggests, this can open the floodgates when someone spoofs your address and you start to get hit with returned emails. This has happened to me once but only resulted in about 30 bounce-back messages. Not everyone will have that level of flexibility with their server/host and few people have a domain name that is unique to one person. However if you can attain that setup it can be a great tool.

By enabling a catch-all account I can create "throw-away" email addresses on the fly, much like how credit card companies can now issue you a temporary credit card number good for a few hours. Whenever I register on a website I can create an email address for use only on that site. So if I register for an account at amazon.com I would tell them my email address is amazon@mydomain.com. The catch-all system delivers that email directly to me with no setup.

These "throw-away" addresses also make it easy to filter my incoming mail into the appropriate boxes in my email client. I can simply filter by who the email was sent "to" and have a rule that works 100% of the time.

However the best use of the catch-all is the fact that I can discard any address as necessary. If a website decides to sell my email address to a sp@mmer I will instantly know which company sold me out by the address the email is sent to. Likewise if an address gets harvested I can discard the address as well.

Furthermore I can then tell my Xserve (server) to refuse messages sent to the address the sp@mmers now have. I also refuse messages to common usernames such as sales@, webmaster@, info@, etc. About two years ago I would get about 200 sp@ms per day; due to these techniques I am now down to about 2 per month. That's not a typo.

As Rich suggests, this can open the floodgates when someone spoofs your address and you start to get hit with returned emails. This has happened to me once but only resulted in about 30 bounce-back messages. Not everyone will have that level of flexibility with their server/host and few people have a domain name that is unique to one person. However if you can attain that setup it can be a great tool.