Spotted this on Consumerist recently and wanted to share. Should your GMail account get hacked and you would like to get it back, you may be up shit creek. There’s no real way for two people to prove which of them is the real account holder, and which isn’t. (Think back to how little account info Google collected from you when you signed up.) Cover yourself and add some alternate emails to your Google Account:

Associate other accounts with your primary GMail address. Do you have a work email? Tell Google. It will drastically improve your ability to verify your identity.

You can associate more than one alternate email address – I added my current work email address, as well as my old Hotmail, which is still kicking around and gathering spam (and emails from Travelocity since they don’t seem to believe in allowing you to unsubscribe, no matter how many times you try).