In terms of internet privacy, what are email aliases, how do they work, and when would I use them?

Question

Do you use a different one for everything you sign up for online? Only social media?

In: Technology

Answer 1

They are different addresses that end up sending email to the same place. They are useful because:

* You can e.g. give an organization a particular alias and then filter all email that comes in via that alias to a folder for that organization.

* If you get spam, you can tell who gave your info away by which alias it arrived with. Useful if all those people you emailed said “we don’t sell your information”, but someone clearly did.