One common and serious problem, though, is spammers who take someone’s legitimate email address, perhaps from a webpage or business card, and use it to “spoof” the source of their spam emails. “Spoofed” emails cause a lot of grief; first of all, the proper owner of the spoofed address will receive all the angry complaints from recipients who simply reply to the spam. Worse, the legitimate owner’s email address can wind up on “known spam” filtering and blocking lists which can actually make the innocent owner’s email address useless. Like any other form of identity theft, the damage can be severe.

Since a permanent solution will require significant changes to how the internet functions, it’s important to guard your primary email address.