Gone are the days when you should be entering your real email address into a website. It’s far too easy for websites to sell the information you provide to data brokers who use your email for marketing, targeted ads, and even reselling.
Why you should mask your email
Beyond the threat of nefarious data brokers, if you’ve ever had the misfortune of your email address being leaked in a data breach, it’s likely kept on the dark web for scammers and cybercriminals alike to target. There are countless databases where hackers store your information to use for scams and future hacking attempts.
Has your email been leaked already?
If you’re not sure, head to Haveibeenpwned to see if your email has ever been leaked.
There have even been instances of government bodies buying data broker information for surveillance purposes.
An easy way to protect your details from being leaked is to not hand them out in the first place. By giving out masked emails when you sign up for services and accounts, you can simply destroy the email at the click of a button when you’re done. That means scammers won’t be able to target you – they’ll be targeting a dead email.
Fast and easy email masking
If you want to shore up your privacy, there are two services I’d recommend above all else: NordVPN and Surfshark. You may be asking yourself “Why would I buy a VPN to mask my email?” The simple answer is that both of these services let you create and remove email masks at the touch of a button. No creating a secondary secure email, setting up redirects manually, and having to remember multiple passwords and logins – save your time and do it all in a single click.
They’ll even auto-inject the fake email into your browser for you, so you don’t have to remember what that new email address was. It’s no surprise they’re two of the best VPN services on the market.
The value doesn’t stop there, though. Beyond masking your email, you can use these VPNs to protect your devices from hackers, stream Netflix abroad, and even block ads and malware. There are so many benefits of using a VPN!
Take advantage of the money-back guarantees to get two months of protection before you decide whether or not to commit.
Want to go a step further?
If you want to go on the privacy offensive, check out Incogni – it actively removes your information from data brokers and helps prevent you from being exploited by aggressive marketing and advertisers. I’ve been using it for a year now and I get way less spam and targeted ads.
You can even get Incogni included in the cost of your Surfshark subscription, cutting the cost massively compared to buying each tool separately.
Whatever you decide to do, make sure you keep your email address private and you won’t have to deal with unnecessary spam.
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andreas.theodorou@futurenet.com (Andreas Theodorou)
