Thats frustrating that more web forms are rejecting the + these days. For me, it's not an issue, as I've had my domain set to use a _ instead, and gave users a choice of a 1 or 2 letter alias usable only with an _. That way, even if a script sees the separator and removes it, they don't know the proper e-mail address to use.

The spam I was seeing to the Gawker leaked address made it past my first hard deny wall of defense, meaning a bunch of new spammers were getting into the game with the distribution list. First line for me uses the public databases of known spamming IPs and will just reject a message with nothing making it through to the spool. The second line of defense, my SpamAssassin content based filter was catching most of them, and tossing them into a "probably spam" folder. A few that made it through just said "Hey, FYI, your address was leaked by Gawker" and usually came from some security company, probably hoping I'd be thankful enough for the message and go buy their product or something.

I had stopped visiting Gawker sites well before the incident, and the hack only helped reaffirm my decision to stay away. I wonder if they have the ability to delete accounts yet.

Though, due to my e-mail system, I know they are just one of many organizations bad about keeping their user list private. I sign up for a lot of gaming/MMO related discussion boards and services, and nearly all of them have leaked their user list at some point. Those addresses then start getting hit with phishing attempts trying to steal my World of Warcraft or Aion account. A good portion of the hack attempts out there today are driven by the desire to gain access to people's gaming accounts, to then steal anything of value and sell it to other people for real world money. Phishing attempts are the most popular way, but they also keep up to date on the latest computer exploits, and tend to try and embed them in Flash ads that could run on a gaming news site.

Eve Online has been one of the few games to address this problem head on, by adding a sanctioned way to buy in game money for real money. Their system works by allowing players to buy 30 day game cards, then those codes from the cards can be turned into an in game item that can be sold to other players. The market system in Eve isn't connected between stations either, so if you want to sell it for a higher price, you have to risk transporting the item in your ship to sell at another station. During transport, it's very possible to be attacked by another player and lose your ship and it's contents. So not only did CCP help combat gold farmers, they integrated the concept completely into the normal gameplay.