I wish I would have known about this earlier. So, if you’re using GMail or Google Apps, you can add a plus (+) sign after your username along with extra characters. When filling out a form online, you could use an address like
john+ivegotyourspamrighthere@gmail.com
This much I knew, and I use this trick pretty often. Problem is, some sites don’t allow the plus sign in their email validation code even though it’s perfectly legitimate.
What I didn’t know is that you can do the same thing with dots (.). Most every email validation allows for dots, so you could enter something like
john.ive.got.your.spam.right.here@gmail.com
I’m sure it’s obvious to most of you, but with this you could receive email to your real account while having the ability to create a filter to “turn off” that address if you saw that it was being abused.
(via The Official GMail Blog)