[jpl]

And under no circumstances should one ever give out one's primary e-mail addy to any web site for any reason. If a web site ever insists on a valid e-mail addy for authentication purposes, get a temporary one for free from Yahoo or some similar provider.

[laurav]

If a web site ever insists on a valid e-mail addy for authentication purposes, get a temporary one for free from Yahoo or some similar provider.

Let me put in a plug for Yahoo... I used to have a Hotmail account. It got so much spam I lost the messages I wanted to keep due to bandwidth. So I switched to Yahoo and have not had a problem. Maybe 10% of my email is spam, and most of it goes straight into the bulk folder, to be deleted after 30 days automatically.