Concealing your email address from the public is a critical step in preserving your online privacy and safety
Any time you sign up for a newsletter, want to use an online service or make a purchase over the web, you are leaving digital breadcrumbs behind in the form of your email address. Tracing these breadcrumbs back to your inbox opens the door to all sorts of annoyances, including getting regularly hit by an enormous amount of spam emails, falling victim to phishing, and causing other security concerns.
Reducing the odds of this happening by concealing your email and, with it, protecting your virtual persona, can be a challenging task. However, there are a few strategies you can try.
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By far the most effective option is to conceal your real email address by using an alias or a disposable email. This can be done through a service that allows you to set up a secondary or temporary address and then forward messages to your inbox without revealing your real email address.
To illustrate, yourrealname@email.com turns into a ‘decoy’ like anonymous123@email.com. This alias then transfers messages to you without broadcasting your actual address.
For briefer purposes, you can resort to disposable email services that provide an email address for a limited period, after which it self-destructs in a Mission Impossible-like way. This is particularly useful when creating accounts for sites you might visit once or twice or if they seem iffy regarding the use of your details.Replace your email address with a contact form
Another efficient way to keep your email address hidden is to refrain from sharing it directly and rely on a contact form instead. Say you have a website or a blog – you can attach a form that permits whoever wishes to contact you to do so without seeing your email address.
Through a contact form, visitors can send you questions, comments, and the like, which then arrive in your inbox. The beauty of all this is that you do not have to display your real email address on the Internet, hence minimizing the chances of bots and scrapers picking it up.
