Here are some suggestions for dealing with these situations. Please note that there is generally more than one solution for a given problem.

Online Shopping - quick resolution

When you purchase items online, it is safe to assume that the site you are buying from will send you confirmation messages and any other information that they feel is important (letting you know the item has been delayed or is out of stock, for example).

Some of these transactions complete in seconds and the sites never really need to get a hold of you afterwards. You don't have to worry about a shareware vendor being out of stock, for example. All you need, typically, is the key code they will e-mail you once they've finished billing your credit card.

In situations such as this, I don't generally add anything to my whitelist. Instead, I give the site my regular, filtered e-mail address, complete the transaction, and then go into tmda-cgi to manually release any messages they may have sent me (typically an invoice e-mail and a registration code e-mail). That way, I don't have to worry about them spamming me in the future.

True, I won't get any announcements they may send me if a new version comes out, but this is a trade-off that I am consciously making. I figure that if I like a program enough to consider upgrading, I am likely to go back to the site once in a while to see if there is a new version out. Your mileage may vary. If you want to receive any follow-up messages from such a site, keep reading.

Online Shopping - large sites that ship

Sites that will ship you tangible products are liable to send you several e-mails over the coming days; an invoice, notification that your product has been shipped, notification that your product has been delayed, etc. In situations like this, I prefer to whitelist the entire domain before placing my order.

If you have already ordered your product, don't panic. Simply look into your pending directory with tmda-cgi and see if they have already sent you any confirmation messages. If they have, manually release them.

I prefer to whitelist entire domains (*@=bestbuy.com instead of onlinestore@bestbuy.com) in cases like this because it is hard to predict what e-mail address will be on any notifications you may receive. Even if you have shopped with a site before, there is always a chance that an out of stock notification or other important message may come from a different address than those generated by a transaction that goes more smoothly.

Opting out

It is also worth mentioning that these sites you do business with may start spamming you. Typically, we're talking about reputable sites since you've already done business with them, so they will generally have an option to opt-out. In these cases, I recommend you do opt-out of any mailings they decided you have agreed to receive.

Don't bother trying this with general spam! The opt-out links they claim to give you are usually used to verify that you are a real person.

If the site does not allow you to opt out (or they continue to spam you after you have opted-out), simply remove them from your whitelist. If you're the crusader type, you should file a complaint with TRUSTe. Personally, I'm content to let TMDA do its job. If you choose to do further business with the site, you may want to whitelist and un-whitelist them again next time, or just manually release anything they send you and risk missing other messages.

Don't worry about the site selling off your e-mail address. If they do, any spam generated by the company they sell to will almost surely come from a different domain. TMDA should block these.

Online Shopping - small sites that ship

When shopping with smaller companies, most of the same advice still applies. The only other thing I would like to add is that smaller companies often do not do their own credit card processing.

Credit card processing is pretty expensive and a lot of little companies can't afford to set it up. Instead, they'll pay higher transaction fees and let other companies do their transactions for them. It all works the same from a consumer's point of view, but in such cases, you should expect the invoice e-mail to come from a totally different domain.

If you shop with small companies (you may need to use your own web-tuition to determine if the company is a small company) and do not receive an invoice e-mail after making your purchase, check in your pending directory with tmda-cgi. Simply release the invoices manually. You can also whitelist the credit card processor if you plan to do more business with the small company.

Online Shopping - auctions and individuals

Buying online from auctions generally doesn't take any extra effort once you have TMDA installed. Auctioners are usually real people and capable of confirming e-mail.

If you expect to be contacted, but do not receive an e-mail, check your pending queue to see if one is in there.

Technical Support

There are times when you need to contact a site and instead of giving you an e-mail address, they provide a form where you can enter your question and return address. Although it is possible that a real person will get back in touch with you, it is more likely that you will receive automated replies.

Although you could simply whitelist the site's domain, I prefer to generate dated addresses in these situations. Simply click on the addresses tab, put in "30 days" under the "dated" section and click generate. If the selection already says "30 days" then it has already generated one for you and you do not need to re-generate it.

Now copy the address shown and paste it into the tech-support form. This address is good for 30 days and will require no confirmation until then. I figure that if you can't get help in a month, then you aren't going to get any help at all.

Since the address will expire on its own, you don't have to worry about the company spamming you or selling off your address to a spammer. You may still get spammed, but only until the address expires.

Announcements

Many websites provide ways for you to sign up for automated annoucements. This is a great way to get breaking news, daily jokes, or alerted when websites add new stuff.

The easiest way to make sure you receive such mailings is to add the address or domain to your whitelist. The mailing addresses for these don't generally change, so if you have such an alert in your pending list, simply click the whitelist button.

Mailing Lists

Using a keyword address is a good way to receive mailing list mail. Essentially, this issues out a key to your inbox to anyone who sends mail to the list. Keyword addresses are risky (in the sense that they open you up to being spammed) but it is the simplest way to make sure TMDA accepts mail from everyone on the list, since you can't anticipate the e-mail addresses of other subscribers.

Keyword addresses contain a short piece of text that will help you remember why you generated the key in the first place. So if you are signing up to a mailing list for quilters (see the FAQ), you might choose a keyword of "quilters".

If a spammer "harvests" your keyword address from the quilters mailing list, then their spam will have the key it needs to make it into your inbox. To stop them from spamming you, you'll have to revoke the quilters key by adding the keyword address (not just the keyword itself) to your "revoked" list. This essentially "changes the lock" so the old keyword won't work. You can sign up for the quilters mailing list again with a new key, but you are still at risk of having your keyword address harvested again.

I've found that some lists get harvested regularly while other lists do not get harvested at all. If you find yourself making keywords of "quilters", "quilters2", "quilters3", etc.; then you should probably give up on the list. Perhaps there is another quilters mailing list without such active spammers trolling the archives?

Note: I recommend that you unsubscribe from any lists you subscribed to before installing TMDA on your account. Then re-subscribe with a keyword address, as explained below.

How you get the keyword address to the list depends on how the list is set up.

Subscribing via a webpage

More and more often, mailing list signups are being done with webpage forms. You enter your e-mail address into an input box on a webpage, the mailing list sends you a confirmation e-mail, you then reply to the list's confirmation to verify that you want to be on the list.

Instead of typing in your regular, filtered e-mail address (let's say your address is joe@ilovequilts.com and you're signing up for a mailing list run by quiltingfanatic.com), log into tmda-cgi and click on the "Addresses" menu. Enter in "quilters" into the first input box (labelled "Keyword") and click "Generate". tmda-cgi will generate a new keyword address (it will be something like joe-keyword-quilters.092a48@ilovequilts.com) and place it in the second input box (labelled "Use address").

By default, keyword addresses will be accepted by TMDA, so you should not need to copy this address to any of your lists.

Using your mouse, select the entire keyword address. Hit control-C to copy the address, then return to the mailing list's signup page and paste (control-V) the address into the form. Your confirmation e-mail will be sent to the keyword address, so if you have done everything correctly, you should receive the confirmation message into your inbox without having to use tmda-cgi to release it.

Note: Some mailing lists only allow subscribed users to post to the list. Although you are a subscribed user, it will appear that your posts are coming from a different e-mail address than the one you used to subscribe (joe@ilovequilts.com instead of joe-keyword-quilters.092a48@ilovequilts.com). If your posts do not go through or you receive an e-mail about "only subscribed users are permitted to post", then you will need to add the following line to your outgoing filter:

to *@quiltingfanatic.com keyword=quilters

This tells TMDA to use the keyword address "quilters" whenever you send mail at an address at quiltingfanatic.com.

Subscribing via e-mail

Some mailing lists still handle subscribing and unsubscribing by e-mail. They either expect you to send a blank e-mail to a special "subscribe" address or send an e-mail to a configuration address and put "SUBSCRIBE" in either your e-mail's subject or the beginning of the body. The mailing list manager then captures your e-mail address from the message, possibly sends you a confirmation message to which you'll have to reply, and then adds to the list.

Do not do this just yet! If you do, you will be subscribing with your filtered e-mail address.

Instead, log into tmda-cgi and click on "Filters" and then "Outgoing Filter". If you are subscribing to a list at quiltingfanatic.com and wish to use a keyword of "quilters" (see the previous example), then add the following to your filter:

to *@quiltingfanatic.com keyword=quilters

Save your filter, and then send off your subscription e-mail. The new filter instruction will make sure that your subscription request (and any posts you make) all come from a keyword address. The mailing list manager will then capture this address and use it instead of your regular, filtered address.