Although my AOL address is just one of four I use regularly - including one published each week in this newspaper - it receives almost all of my spam.

But I avoided the privacy problems the writer, Elizabeth Stone, faced by never giving out my AOL address to my students.

Many of its customers also want to keep their AOL e-mail address.

One stay-at-home mother, who did not want her name used, said she resented that her husband had a private office address while she used their shared AOL address at home.

"The problem is with the cops," a driver wrote in from an AOL address.

He told investigators that he paid $60 to someone he had met on Carderplanet to buy a program designed to harvest AOL e-mail addresses.

Q. Is there anything I can do about the amount of spam, some of it pornographic, that I get at my AOL address?

"I'd like to switch but I've got my AOL address on my business card," said Jean Wyman, an entrepreneur who lives in Los Angeles.

A few years ago, I finally gave up that AOL address when I found a local Internet service provider that was less expensive and promised better service.

A few weeks ago we gave Zach an AOL address at home.