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Email Protection: As Important as Password Protection

Guest post by: Bill Golden

Article Overview: As you may know, email marketing service provider, Epsilon, sustained a major security breach and now at least your name and email address are in the hands of spammers. Here are at least some of the companies affected...

Email Protection: As Important as Password Protection

As you may know, email marketing service provider, Epsilon, sustained a major security breach and now at least your name and email address are in the hands of spammers. Here are at least some of the companies affected: • Kroger

• TiVo

• US Bank

• JPMorgan Chase

• Capital One

• Citi

• Home Shopping Network (HSN)(added 4/3 @10:22am)

• Ameriprise Financial

• LL Bean Visa Card

• Lacoste

• AbeBooks

• McKinsey & Company

• Ritz-Carlton Rewards

• Marriott Rewards

• New York & Company

• Brookstone

• Walgreens (Again!)

• The College Board (added 4/3 @8:20am)

• Disney Destinations

• Best Buy

• Robert Half Technologies

For years, I have used Yahoo's disposable email address service to create vendor/account-unique email addresses. Every time I buy something or enter into a new "vendor relationship" online, I create a unique email address. (I am presently up to around 450 out of 500 allowed, per Yahoo account.) By creating disposable email addresses, if there is a security breach involving an email account or if the account gets spammed, I can easily delete the offending email account and create a new one.

In addition to Yahoo, there are other kinds of similar services as well. Techie Buzz discusses some on a March, 2009 post (Google: 10-temporary-disposable-email-services).

I have only used Yahoo's service, but of the ones at Techie Buzz, MyTrashMail.com looks to be the most promising. However, you will have to go to their site to read any of the emails, and that's a tad inconvenient in my book. I'm sticking with Yahoo, but just for this service. (P.S., I have read that Hotmail now offers a similar service.)

Whichever path you choose, you will end up better protected than you are now and hopefully, you will get better control of your email world. Let me know how it goes!

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Article Tags: breach, buzz, disposable, email, email address, Epsilon, hotmail, marketing service, mytrashmail, security, security breach, service provider, spam, spammers, techie, temporary, yahoo



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