After we posted instructions on how to get your personal information off Spokeo, we received numerous comments and emails from our readers with concern about having to share your email address in order to remove yourself.
While we understand that sharing more personal information seems counter-intuitive, we also think it’s wise to have multiple email addresses for that very purpose.
If you’re wondering why in the world you need more email addresses, here’s how we use ours.
1. Personal email: We keep an email address that’s reserved solely for personal interactions. No work business, no PTA invitations — just one that we can use to chat with friends and keep up with family. The key is to guard this email heavily and ask anyone who does receive it not to put you on any lists. If you’re afraid that might happen, then don’t give them this email. That’s what #2 is for.
Also, please use your own name. JenandRobbie@xx.com may have seemed cute when you were fielding wedding RSVPs but if you’re a woman in 2012, we’re big believers in having your very own address.
2. Business email: For you working moms, this might be a little easier to separate out, since many companies have their own servers and provide you with an address. It should most likely contain your name or some form of it:
KChase, Kristen.Chase, K_Chase.
However, if you don’t work in or outside the home, chances are you’ve still got other commitments, whether it’s for your kid’s school, swimming lessons, carpool, in which you might want a more professional, straightforward sounding email.
3. Catch-all email: Call it whatever you like, but this email address should be used for any sort of sign-ups — coupons, coupon sites, members-only sites, political donations — as well as registration confirmation for commenting on websites, or for sites like Spokeo where you don’t want all that info plaguing your personal or business inbox. This is where you might consider using a nickname or a random series of names and numbers.
Even though you’ll still check this one daily, or every few days if you’re not too concerned about the limited-time deals, you won’t have to worry about missing an email from your kid’s school or your Aunt Hilda in the midst of the flood of emails that will hit this box. And you won’t worry about sharing it with questionable websites.
And if you’re on me.com, you can also create an alias for this purpose that ends up with your other mail, but doesn’t give away personal info.
Since web-based email addresses (e.g. hotmail, yahoo, gmail) are free these days, you should have no problem setting up a few accounts. Not only will it save you the discomfort of sharing more personal information, I bet you’ll find yourself feeling much more organized and on top of your emails. -Kristen
if you use gmail, you don’t even have to create new email addresses. just add periods or + signs to create new emails. that way you can filter out any you don’t want to deal with.
“Insert periods into your Gmail address, for example, (so that yourname@gmail.com becomes your.name@gmail.com or your.na.me@gmail.com) and you’ll have created an entirely new email address. Gmail though will ignore the periods and send all messages to your usual account. It also ignores the difference between @gmail.com and @googlemail.com, giving you another option to play with.
More interestingly, if you insert a plus-sign into your Gmail address, Gmail will also ignore everything between the “+” and the “@” symbol. Register for a newsletter from a sleazy marketing company, for example, and you can give them the address yourname+sleazymarketer@gmail.com. When that address starts receiving adverts for Canadian meds and male enhancers, you’ll know who sent them.”
Source: https://www.geekpreneur.com/top-gmail-tricks
Great advice! I definitively need to create a catch-all email. My personal email is bombarded with this stuff.
Thanks Beka, amazing points! Thank you. We’d still recommend creating a “spam” account that has nothing to do with your real name at all for times that you feel uncomfortable being your.name@…
I am up to four email addresses. Work, personal, personal catch all, and blog email. It seems excessive but this is a great way to divide out my life when it comes to email. These days, they all feed to the same device and even appear on the same screen so it is not difficult to maintain all of these. But at the same time I know certain email boxes deserve more attention and that my bills are probably in another email address. I totally encourage many email addresses and to limit personal emails that are sent to work email. Keep in mind that emails in work accounts can be reviewed by your employer, no questions asked.