<username>+label[+morewords]@gmail.com
where + is ignored by Gmail servers when matching, and 'label' can be defined by you. This keeps emails routing to the same account, but allows you to filter.
I am aware of that, my point stands "its a pain in the ass and requires effort for very, very little return."
Good luck finding services that accept a + in the email address and this is so common you aren't fooling anyone, it takes just a couple lines of code to strip pluses out of gmail addresses to get the "real" address if you are a spammer.
Getting creepy LinkedIn spam is such a non-issue it isn't worth exerting even a moderate amount of effort.
variation-on-first-name+servicename@lastname.com - works
variation-on-first-name@lastname.com - black hole.
Give friends #1. Give services #2.
(Happy panix.com user.)
Where is this "pain in your ass"? With Gmail at least, you don't need to actually _create_ an alias before using one.
When prompted to enter an email somewhere on the web, you have to type your email in, regardless, correct? In that process, append '+domain' to your username and you've just created an alias for that domain. It's very low overhead.
> Good luck finding services that accept a + in the email address
I haven't come across one yet. Maybe you can cite a source? I am not disagreeing, just saying maybe you can give examples to back up these vociferous claims.
> strip pluses out
So far, Gmail is the only service I am aware of that uses '+' in this way. Other services may not have the same method (e.g., use another character).
Why would spammers actually _care_ to realize you're using a 'filter technique'? The lay person probably doesn't even know this feature exists, and spammers aren't targeting people like you, anyway.