Advice on setting DS up with an email address

[bozza]

DS is 7 and wants an email address which I think could be kind of fun for him. So I was thinking about setting up with a hotmail account and knowing the password myself. But I am a bit worried about unsavoury spam. What would you do about that? Any other pitfalls? We haven't branched out much further than nick jr and google earth thus far.

mine have got emails as sub accounts to my btinternet address

don't know if you have that sort of account available?

At the moment, they haven't had spam but the btinternet has a good spam filter so I think it would pick it up into the spam folder before it hit the inbox (it does in mine).

I did have a conversation with mine before setting them up (about spam and what it is).

Can't think of any downsides....mine do use theirs to open accounts on websites though (like where they have to register and you're supposed to email a parent but they email themselves) so I've told them I need to see the website before they do that.

Gmail is pretty good for avoiding spam, too, if you wanted a web-based account. It is very easy to set up Outlook Express or similar to collect the messages.

I would advise not using his first name in the address as my dh got lots and lots of porn sent to his hotmail accounts but when he opened one with his initial and surname he didn't get any.

I think google mail is cooler

I have a Googlemail account that I use just for parking stuff (ie not my main acct). I get absolutely no spam on it.

It's the acct that Mumsnet is registered on, so I can vouch that either Mumsnet doesn't sell addresses or GM is very effective at blocking spam.

GMail is great at blocking spam. I have several accounts since they started up and have only had the odd very rare piece of unsolicited mail which is immediately swept into Junk so I never see any of it unless I look. I use them to sign up for all kinds of stuff, too.

We do have a talk21 address. It is the one that DH and I share. That is the same as btinternet basically, isn't it?