Fight Spam with a Disposable Email Address

With over 12 billion pieces of junk email known as spam being sent every day, your in box is likely growing more and more clogged with spam each day. Over the next year, spam is expected to increase by 67% despite legislation aimed at stopping it. The growth of unwanted email will continue but you can fight back by using disposable email addresses.

Disposable email addresses are not new. Chances are you already have a free web based email account that you use specifically for situations where you would rather route the email away from your regular account. For example, when ordering a product online, you may want the email receipt but suspect if you give your regular address out, you will be spammed from the retailer and possibly even have your email address sold to other spammers. This is a smart move but it does require that you occasionally go to the web based account to retrieve the email you want.

A better move is to use a disposable email address from a service such as SpamGourmet or Emailias. SpamGourmet is a free service while Emailias is membership based with price plans varying from $1.75 per month to $4.95 per month. Services such as these allow you to use an alias rather than your own existing email address when corresponding with websites, signing up for newsletters, posting on message boards or however you choose to use your email address.

These disposable email addresses allow you to receive email from these sources for a limited time or for a limited number of emails before they self destruct. For example, if you want to try out an online newsletter, you could assign a disposable email address with a limit of 20 emails. You will then receive your newsletters and any other emails from this company until the limit of 20 is reached. Once you’ve received the 20th email, that’s it. All future emails will be zapped before even reaching your computer.

This is a great way to try out a newsletter or other service. You can immediately see how the company handles their emailings. If you like the service and are confident they aren’t sending spam, then you can extend the limit or even make them a trusted sender. On the other hand, if they immediately send you spam or sell your email address, you can cut them off right away.