Stop giving companies your real email address – use pseudo

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Web-sites may sell your email address to spammers or leak your address in a data breach.
• An email alias service hides your real email address and makes it easier to curb spam.
• Choose an email alias service like Proton Mail for top-notch encryption, or AnonAddy for easy, on-the-fly alias generation.

This article is linked to the blog on the importance of passwords and provides additional information to complete the picture of the measures that need to be taken in order to protect login accounts on various websites. You can’t improve your online privacy or security without deciding to change your habits. Using your real email address to log into websites is just one of those habits. You’ve spent decades entering the same email address on every website, leaving you vulnerable to both spammers and hackers.

Fortunately, this habit is very easy to correct. You only need to use email pseudonyms (abbreviation “pseudo”).

Spammers and hackers want your email address

Websites shamelessly sell user data to advertisers, and client email addresses are regularly leaked in corporate data breaches.

Spam is a distraction and can be a source of phishing attacks or other cybercrime. While an email address is often the least scary thing to come out of a data breach, it can lead to a lot of trouble. Hackers can find out that you are visiting websites that are private, such as medical records. Or, they can use data from multiple breaches to build a picture of your identity and define a targeted attack.

We can mitigate these threats by using unique passwords for each account, keeping personal information close to you, setting up fraud alerts, and monitoring untrusted email messages. Hiding your real email address simply creates an extra layer of protection and privacy.

Email alias services keep your real email address hidden

Instead of giving web-sites your real email address, you should use pseudo email address services that generate unique email addresses for forwarding. Email aliases are not real email accounts and do not require a special password or a lengthy setup process. Instead, ask a client like Apple Hide My Email or Proton Mail to generate an alias with a randomized name, such as “inflamed-tomato@icloud.com”. Any message sent to this alias will be forwarded to your primary email inbox, but the sender will never know your real email address.

If a web-site decides to sell one of your alias addresses to advertisers, it’s no big deal. Simply disable email forwarding for that address to prevent the spam from reaching your real inbox. Of course, aliases also give you the opportunity to see which websites are selling your data. Let’s say that you use an email alias for a golfing website—if the alias is suddenly inundated by spam, it’s safe to assume that the golfing website sold your alias to advertisers.

Email aliases aren’t just for random web-sites or social networking apps. You are free to use an email alias for bank, utility or other important accounts. It should be noted that some major web-sites will reject email aliases. It is recommended to use dedicated addresses for banking and other security sensitive accounts. In this way, you make a deviation from the primary email address and additionally increase the security of the most sensitive information.

You can also send email from pseudo email. If you reply to a message forwarded from one of your aliases, it is automatically filtered through the alias, preventing you from accidentally revealing your real email address.

The only problem with aliases or pseudo email addresses is that you will quickly end up with a unique email address for each site. This makes logging in a bit complicated, but the problem is solved with a password manager – software that automatically manages logging in to various web-sites, such as NordPass, RoboForm, Keeper, Proton Pass, and many others. Password managers can quickly and automatically fill in your login information for many web-sites and help you generate unique passwords for each of your accounts. I recommend using a password manager even if you choose not to use pseudo email addresses. You can find more about password managers in the article – Why Passwords Are So Important.

Which email alias service should you use?

There are several email alias services to choose from. And, aside from some differences in usability or payment structure, they all perform the same basic task.

Here’s a quick list of the best email alias services:

• Apple Hide My Email: All Apple devices have a built-in email aliasing client called Hide My Email. It’s far from the most intuitive option, but it’s free, and it automatically suggests aliases when you sign up for new websites.
• Proton Mail: Customers who pay for Proton Mail can generate an unlimited number of hide-my-email aliases from the Proton Mail Security Center, the Proton Pass app, or SimpleLogin. Proton Mail includes a ton of intuitive email-organization features that are worth checking out, too.
• AnonAddy: A popular, open-source aliasing service with free and paid options. AnonAddy also offers a browser extension, which makes on-the-fly alias generation extremely easy.
• Firefox Relay: A neat service with free and paid tiers. Firefox Relay is good for those who want a convenient web-based dashboard for managing aliases, and the top membership tiers include phone number aliasing.
• DuckDuckGo Email Protection: Available for free, DuckDuckGo Email Protection is a good option for those who regularly use DuckDuckGo’s services. And, like Firefox Relay, it includes a simple web-based dashboard.
• SimpleLogin: The best option for advanced users who need to generate aliases on a self-hosted domain. Note that SimpleLogin was recently acquired by Proton.

If you want to completely reorganize your email settings and increase privacy, Proton Mail may be the best of these options. Proton Mail offers impressive email organizing features, and while all of the above email services are clearly privacy-oriented, Proton goes the extra mile with full end-to-end encryption in all of its products.

AnonAddy, Firefox Relay, and DuckDuckGo Email Protection are all incredibly easy to use and don’t require much setup. AnonAddy is good for those who need to access aliases regularly, while Firefox and DuckDuckGo are better for occasional use.

Apple Hide My Email has the advantage of being integrated with Apple products, and if you own an iPhone or Mac, you probably already use it. However, the interface for managing or deleting Hide My Email aliases is quite unintuitive. I imagine this will improve over time, as Apple recently announced some huge improvements to its password management service.

When should you not use email aliases?

You can use an email alias whenever you want. However, you should probably use your real email address when communicating with friends, family, colleagues, lawyers, government bodies, or anyone else who needs to know who they’re talking to.

If you’re worried that grandma will expose your primary email address to a bunch of spammers, then don’t give her your primary address. Make a new email address and use it exclusively for familial communications. Most email apps and services make it easy to switch between accounts on the fly, so managing an extra email account should be a trivial task.

On the same note, email aliases aren’t really designed with digital signature verification in mind. A digital signature is essentially a fingerprint for outgoing emails—it proves that the email was sent by you and was not altered during transit. Most people have never utilized a digital signature, and some email clients don’t support the feature, so this is a niche point.

Likewise, pseudo email addresses are not really designed with digital signature verification in mind. A digital signature is actually a fingerprint for outgoing email. It proves that you sent the email and that the address was not changed during transmission.

Pseudo email addresses are just one tool in your toolbox. You don’t need to use aliases all the time, and aliases won’t completely protect you from spam or cybercriminals. Also, if your primary email address is your first and last name, people won’t have much trouble guessing it. Now is the time to log into your email account, set up two-factor authentication, and come up with a unique password.

Source: How-To Geek