I don't think it hurts anything. It only takes me a second and if someone really wants to email me they will be willing to put it all together. If it stops one

I don't think it hurts anything. It only takes me a second and if someone really wants to email me they will be willing to put it all together. If it stops one spam message it was worth it. On the other hand, GMail's spam filter is so good these days I rarely notice spam so I really shouldn't care whether a bot snatches up my email address or not. Guess it's just habit from the pre-Google years.