Two simple ideas for protecting your email address and reducing spam in your inbox
I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of us don’t like spam and junk email in our inboxes. I say ‘most of us’ because apparently enough people still buy products advertised in spam email or follow-up on the latest hot stock tips to make sending spam a profitable operation for spammers. So, while that’s still going on, the rest of us will have to figure out ways to deal with it.
Many of us look at our ISPs (internet service providers) and expect them to save us from the spam avalanche. Unfortunately, I’m not so sure it’s the ISP’s problem to begin with. I see it more as a case of ‘your ISP won’t help you if you don’t help yourself first’. Why do I say that? Because in my opinion we, the internet users, are often too eager to give up our email address to anybody who’ll ask for it.
Here’s a simple scenario: you’re online browsing and you come across a site that promises you a free e-book on a topic that interests you or maybe free access to a members-only area that contains some information that you might actually want. What’s the catch? You have to sign-up for the free information with your email address because they’ll send you everything you need via email. So you happily give them your email address, get the promised information, and then a week later you notice that the level of spam email in your inbox is higher than normal. Coincidence? Most likely not…
Now, I’m not saying here that every site out there that gives away stuff via email will necessarily give away or sell your email address to spammers. I’m sure there are many legitimate sites out there that have the proper privacy policies in place and actually follow them. That’s not the point - the point is that I should not even have to care about this if I’m careful. Whenever I come across such sites and I want the info they have I don’t even bother trying to see if they have a privacy policy in place or if they appear to be a legitimate site with a good history. That’s not important - I’m not there to enter in a business relationship with them by paying for a product. I’d probably be more careful in that case. They want to give something away for free via email and I’d like to obtain that without compromising my email address.
What options do I have? Here are two quick ideas that will save you from a lot of possible spam in the future:
1. Use a separate email address
This is a very simple approach since it’s so easy to get an email address with one of the many free email services such as Yahoo, Hotmail and even Gmail. When I come across a site that needs my email to give me the promised information I just give them this separate email address instead of my main one. Once I submit the request the web sites are usually pretty good about responding right away via email so I can quickly check if I received what I was looking for. It doesn’t matter to me how much other junk mail gets collected in this particular inbox - I don’t have to deal with it. I only check it when I know I’ll receive something I’m interested in and that’s that. Spammers can send spam to that email address all they want - it won’t really affect me since I won’t have to sit there every day looking at it.
2. Use a disposable email address
This approach is similar to the one above but it can sometimes be even simpler. What do I mean by a disposable email address? There are free services out there that create an email address for you on the spot without you actually creating an account, having to remember a password and all that other work. It’s a quick temporary email address that you can use right away to receive that one email you’re waiting for and then you can just forget about it. Here are two such services:
So there you have it - if you want your email address to stay private and not fall in the wrong hands then be careful who you give it out to. Once it’s out there, it’s much harder to clean and control what comes to your inbox - a classic case of ‘prevention is easier than treatment’.
Filed under: Computers, Productivity, Security
