Gmail and spam, how do they do that?

[Telstar]

I made the switch from Hotmail to Gmail probably 8 months or so ago. I was super carefull with my Hotmail address, I never left it on chatboards so bots could grab it, or on mailing lists. I would regularly get 20+ spams a day. When I cam back after a week, well there could be 140 odd spams!

Since switching to gmail I have not had ONE! How do they do that? Very rarely do they bounce genuine e-mail.

And why is it still by invitation only, its easy to get one if your at all interested, and they have increased the amount of invites from 50 to 100 which you get replenished daily?

[Tolsti]

I have used gmail now for about a year and have been amazed by the lack of spam. However in the last week the odd message has crept through offering various potions to improve my virility (how did they know I ask my self?) and an ebay phishing attempt.

I just hope this is not the start of a flood.