In an attempt to reduce the amount of spam I receive, I’ve decided to have all my non-personal e-mail pass through Gmail. Friends will have my real address, but I’ll give retailers, etc., my Gmail address which will then forward it to my real address.
That way, if the retailer sells my e-mail address, any messages will pass through Gmail’s superior spam filter before being forwarded to my real address. Since there’s no reason for me to actually login to Gmail I’m concerned that after a certain amount of time, Gmail will close my account for inactivity.
The Gmail T&C states they reserve the right to withdraw your account if it hasn’t been logged into for nine months. Solution: login at a frequency of less than nine months.
Another solution, have your regular email forwarded to Gmail. You can still have it look like your legit address, yet the spam filter on everything, and the search, storage, etc. functions to boot.