I've been getting a load of spam recently. If your address gets into one of those collections of addresses sold to spammers, that's pretty much it.

Asking a spammer to remove your address actually confirms it's a working address. Also, if you look at the "to" block in the spam, it often won't actually be to YOU. The message you send to ask for removal will tell them what your address is.

I can read my mail on the server and delete it en masse without downloading. (A friend sent me 6 MB worth of photos yesterday, and most of them went in the dumper.) I have more spam filters in my e-mail program. It's not a real problem for me these days, but its irritation factor is right up there with people who think tuning is optional and those who say "nuculer."