Throw that e-mail address away

Wall Street Journal personal technology columnist Walter Mossberg reviews free e-mail services today. He compares the offerings from Hotmail, Yahoo, Go.com and Mail.com -- all serviceable for general-purpose e-mail.

They may not be the best choices, however, if you're looking for a disposable e-mail address that you can give out freely, use briefly and abandon quickly when the spam arrives.

In that case, check out these two services, also free:

• Jetable creates short-lived e-mail addresses that redirect incoming mail to your real address. You can set them to expire automatically after one, two, four, six or eight days.
• Mailinator creates new e-mail addresses for you on the fly. You don't have to set up anything in advance: just make up an address at one of Mailinator's domains and send e-mail to it. You can check your in-box on the Web site. (Be advised, though, that anyone can look at your Mailinator in-box by typing in your user name.)