As most probably know, Gmail e-mail addresses ignore periods allowing the user to have different e-mail addresses. For example, "simplemachineexample@gmail.com" could also be "simple.machine.example@gmail.com," "sim.ple.mac.hine.exa.mple.@gmail.com," etc.
This feature is nice. However, it's also used by spammers. I just fished deleting over 1,000 spam accounts using this technique to spam our forum.
I think it could help if SMF forums removed the periods for any @gmail.com or @googlemail.com submitted e-mail address or not treat Gmail addresses with extra periods as different addresses.
Having this ability can give a spammer the potential to create dozens of accounts for a single e-mail address.
Tip for those suffering from the same problem, to help find accounts using these tactics, you can search your forum members using search e-mail strings similar to the following examples.
*.?.*@gmail.com
*.??.*@gmail.com
*.

.*@gmail.com