there used to be an email "+" folder field

[vjp2.at]

Some time ago there used to be some standard that if your
email address was (e-mail address removed), you could give out your address as
(e-mail address removed) and when your email arrived it went into a folder named
"c". In effect, anything after the "+" was like a comment. I thought
it was a cool feature at the time, but I could nto get it to work. I
think this would be a great feature to help us tame email, no?


- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
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[Steven M (remove dirt to reply)]

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 03:16:30 +0000 (UTC),

Some time ago there used to be some standard that if your
email address was (e-mail address removed), you could give out your address as
(e-mail address removed) and when your email arrived it went into a folder named
"c". In effect, anything after the "+" was like a comment. I thought
it was a cool feature at the time, but I could nto get it to work. I
think this would be a great feature to help us tame email, no?

Yes, it works, some of the time. When you say you could not get it to
work, exactly how did it NOT work?

Unfortunately, it won't work even if it works.

There's nothing to stop you from giving out your address as (e-mail address removed).
Many (not all) email systems would deliver this to (e-mail address removed).

But some email systems won't let you put (e-mail address removed) in the From: field
of your outgoing email.

Even if that was solved, and all email systems would do the forwarding
correctly, spammers know about this trick, too. In other groups,
people have described how they have never given out the address
(e-mail address removed), only (e-mail address removed), yet they still get spam addressed to (e-mail address removed).

There's another way to achieve the same effect: give out a new
"disposable" address any time you don't trust the person you're giving
it too. That way, when it ends up in the hands of a spammer, (a) you
know exactly where it came from, (b) you can complain to the person
responsible, and (c) you can discard the address. Many ISP's offer
multiple addresses, and I use a third party mail service that allows
unlimited email addresses (they all go to the same mailbox).

Thank the spammers.

 

[those who know me have no need of my name]

[fu-t set -- cross-posted articles should always have a followup-to specified]

in comp.mail.headers i read:

Some time ago there used to be some standard that if your
email address was (e-mail address removed), you could give out your address as
(e-mail address removed) and when your email arrived it went into a folder named
"c". In effect, anything after the "+" was like a comment.

this is an extension offered by some mta's, not something which has been
standardized. other mta's offer something similar, but with a dash. still
others do other things, some seemingly quite different.