where does +detail come from?

[p.lussier at comcast.net]

In a message dated: 25 Mar 2004 13:57:25 EST
Kevin D. Clark said:

>
>Jeff Macdonald writes:
>
>> It is most annoying when sign up forms
>> don't allow + as I use it as a way to tag my address with a vendor's
>> name (ie jeff+palm at blah for Palm). If mail comes from somewhere besides
>> the vendor - well, then you know he sold your address.
>
>Two comments:
>
>1: I wouldn't be surprised if spammers strip out "+detail" from their
>   list of email addresses, either to be more annoying or else to
>   increase the size of their "unique email list".

Well, I would expect spammers to strip them out, but not vendors.  If 
the marketing people at various vendors are as intelligent as the 
ones I've worked with over the years, they still can't figure out how
'sales at insert_company_name.whos_form_you_filled_out.com' keeps 
getting added to the list of addresses to receive said company's spam :)

>2: If you're relying upon this technique to filter out future spam,
>   you're probably going to be disappointed.  If "jeff at palm@blah" gets
>   sold to a spammer, you can be sure that jeff at blah is going to start
>   getting spam, and you won't know who sold your address.

I don't fully rely upon it for this reason.  Though I've started to 
use it heavily for sorting.  Obviously I don't need this for 
procmail, but to do server-side sorting on a closed server it comes 
in real handy if that server is running Cyrus IMAP, which will look 
at the right side of the '+' and drop the e-mail into a like-named 
folder automagically for you :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
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