Alias Email = Setup a second email account that you use for spam/signing up to untrusted websites/free orders etc.

First of all, here is why you should care about your email:

• We all hate spam, but if you open any spam you’ve accidentally helped fund criminals (email marketers often will get paid for every 1000 opens of an email).
• Phishing – If I were to send 10,000 emails to legit email addresses pretending to be a bank, I bet 1-100 people would give their details, opening them up for all sorts of crime. If you can spot these fakes quicker you reduce your risk.
• Ruining your life – If a scammer has access to your main email account they can cause havoc to your life by resetting social media accounts, pretending to be you online etc.
• Scammers will do anything to make money from you, if they can’t scam you they will sell your email address to whoever will buy it!

There are 4 types of alias emails, we use all 4 for different things:

Throwaway Email / One use email (expires after a few hours)

Ideal for: Sites you don’t want to be contacted at all by e.g. a dodgy website, a site offering a free eBook or a possible scam.
If a site demands that you click a link to gain access you can but after a few hours that email will be deleted.
Examples: Guerilla Mail (emails last 1 hour), Mailinator (deleted after a few hours) or 10MinuteMail (deleted after 10minutes)

A secondary email address

Just another email address for anything you don’t want in your main inbox.
Ideal for: Sites you trust but don’t want to fill up your inbox/phone with etc.
Examples: Any web email but Gmail, Yahoo etc all work well.
Tips: Use a different email provider to save you logging in and out all the time. Having a 3rd email address for any offline forms/shops that ask for your email is also useful.

A true Alias Email (a unique alias email for every form)

A unique alias email address for EVERY form, website etc, these go to your main email account but the beauty of it, is that as soon as you receive any spam just click the link at top of email and it will be blocked forever. Saving you having to have multiple email accounts etc. All of the emails arrive inside your normal email inbox but your main email is never placed in harms way.

Ideal for: Everything.
Examples: MaskMe (Blur)
Tips: Some companies are now getting smart and blocking these emails, however still 99% of websites work with it

Using your existing email provider with some awesome hacks/tips

Ideal for: Google Mail Users

• The email [email protected] & [email protected] both go to the same inbox, by adding a ‘+’ to your email along with some keyword that relates to the form being completed. This allows Gmail to automatically filter certain emails into either into a folder, by starring them or worst case spamming them etc.

• If your email gets sold on and you’ve used a keyword relating to that original site you entered, then you have a quick way of seeing who has sold/shared the details.
• You can do a similar thing by adding a ‘.’ anywhere inside your email. e.g. [email protected] will direct to [email protected]. Useful if signing up to the same website multiple times.

What about my name? Should I use an alias?

Another step (especially for freebies that require your address) is to use your name e.g. Danny Dyer, but place a middle name as the website’s name e.g. Danny Redbull Dyer.

When/if a company sells your details on and you receive post, you will know exactly who has done it and more importantly you will instantly know if it’s junk mail or not.