I read in a thread last night someone's suggestion that the push email that you get with a BIS account should not be given out as a primary address, but should only be used by the BIS for forwarding.

I've given mine out because I like it's speed. Aside from the obvious possibility that RIM could have an outage, do you give yours out? Why/why not?

Thanks....Jeff.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

Very little control in preventing spam and other such things when and if you start getting it

No, not a great idea. If you ever change carriers, it is gone, as well, and ditto on EZ's comments, same reason.

Get a free gmail or yahoo address and get the same speed. Gmail has probably the best of spam filtering reputation.

Hmmm. Good argument against.

The only people that get mine are those who absolutely must have instant access -- so only 2 people have it.

Yeah, me too so far. Dad has it, traffic.com for traffic alerts, etc. But these are so far spam free.

Which is better-Gmail or Yahoo?

We only have it as a backup address, in case our BES goes down for some unknown reason. We then still have a way to contact each other. We have never had to use it as of yet though.

Which is better-Gmail or Yahoo?
Neither is better. It's your personal preference.

You should change your @blackberry.net email address as soon as possible, and don't give it to ANYONE, or use it for ANYTHING.

You will get spam on it, and once you do, you can't stop it.

Better yet, just delete it and don't create a new one. You don't need it at all.

Okay, set up Gmail and Yahoo accounts. Can someone remind me how to add separate folder for them on my device?

The separate folder will appear when the BIS activates it and the service book is pushed to the BB. Pull the battery to reboot to get the service book to install.

Believe me, I am not questioning you when you say that -- the strength of your reply is quite evident. My question, however, revolves around how it would get spammed if use is restricted to very infrequent use by one or two persons, and never published? I would be concerned about giving it to any source for automatic replies, such as airlines, etc., but how about your spouse?

Spammers often send junk mail using what's called a 'dictionary attack'.
They simply guess your address by sending to messages to where xxxxxxxxxx is every single combination of letters and numbers they can dream up.

They'll start at the letter a, and continue through every letter of the alphabet.




....
and so on.


You don't need to publish your address, or give it out to anyone in order to start receiving spam on it.
Best not to have an @carrier.blackberry.net email address at all, because spam can't be controlled on it.
Just use a GMail or Yahoo address instead. You still get nearly instant push mail, and you can control spam. Not to mention, the ability to manage your mailbox from anywhere.

No way.
I am email OCD but I absolutely loathe spam on my handset.

What I have always done is have a couple of email addresses for the following.

* A BS email address for forms or contests that I check occasionally but DO NOT put on my phone.

* A Gmail address that I would give to an associate or if I met someone
* A Yahoo like the one above..maybe for IM ease if necessary.

* A Gmail address that I give to almost no one but people I can trust to not forward me crap or give out the address.

I will never put the first one on the BIS and likely will put the rest on the BIS as I need to be able to send from them so those "forwarders" don't have my real address.

I told you I have email OCD.

Good stuff so far. Looks like I'll be thinning use of the blackberry.net account!

And the BIS accounts showed up on my device-thanks.

I deleted my @tmo.blackberry.net address because I got spam on it. I never gave it to anyone. I only used it as a forward from one of my other email accounts.

Spammers decided to spam thousands of random @xxx.blackberry.net addresses a while back. I tried filters on the account, all to no avail. I simply deleted it. I got a Gmail account and have never looked back. I have no need for the @blackberry account.

I don't give mine out, however I do use it to get forwarded e-mail from GMail. If it ever gets spammed I can just deleted it and change it to something else. All I use it for is to receive forwards, and I use GMail as somewhat of an archive for my mail.

Why do you forward from GMail? GMail integrates so well with the BB? No 15 minute wait, reconciliation etc.

I realize it is somewhat of an extra step. But I started doing it because sometimes when there are issues with the integrated accounts with Yahoo! and Google I don't get e-mail. (I am referring to the outages from this year.) But during the last mini outage I was still receiving my mail more consistently because it was going to this address. (Or at least it seemed that way to me.)

Hey... I was just wondering about this. If you set up Gmail through the BIS site, why is there not a 15 minute wait? I use Hotmail and have been debating making the switch.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 8700g: BlackBerry8700/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

GMail and Yahoo! have special arrangements with RIM to allow for this.