Disposable emails

What is a disposable email?

This is basically a service which allows a registered user to get email at an email address which is not their permanent email address. Usually, a disposable email will expire at a specified period of time. It is also called throw-away email, temporary email or self-destructing email.

Why are disposable emails used?

When seeking to know more about some online platforms such as blog and discussion forums, websites conversations and when one wants to give feedback to any of these platforms, or download whitepapers. Most of the people do not like their actual email addresses shared online, so they prefer to use temporary disposable emails in order to conceal their identity and avoid spam mails. It is also annoying to have trash mails on your email address so disposable emails are a perfect choice. Another good reason that people prefer to use disposable emails is to ensure that their security is not compromised in any way. It is possible for some people who are malicious to find the emails of their targets online and start sending to them threatening emails on their actual email address. Ghosters who want to steal identities of dead people also use disposable emails to conceal themselves. Sometimes, it could be that they have been suspected and because they know that the government is after them, they will want to hide themselves from the wrath of the laws.

How to get a disposable email

Getting a disposable email is not a hard thing. Usually, there are companies which offer these services online. All that a person wishing to get a disposable email needs to do is register or sign up with that disposable email provider. After registration, the disposable email user is able to log in to the email and do many things on it such as forwarding, composing, receiving inboxes and any other activity supported by the features of the disposable email software.

Different providers have different policies and terms of use dictated. It is important that a person seeking their services understands exactly what is required of them to avoid being punished by the provider. A disposable email account is created for the individual in need of one, normally for some specific purpose. After the purpose is achieved, the common practice is that the disposable email account will be closed.

Advantages of using a disposable email

Less updating is needed

There are times that a person may wish to change their email address. The challenge is usually updating all the contacts in your email about the change, which is obviously hectic and time consuming. However, with a disposable email, all that is needed is to update one entity only. This undoubtedly saves time and makes it very easy to update a person’s contact people in case of any change.

No spam mails

Avoiding trash and spam mails is one of the major reasons that people choose to open a disposable email address. The holder of the disposable email is more likely to give it to someone that they believe will not misuse it. However, in case there arises any sort of compromise on the disposable email account, the holder is safe from spam and trash as they will soon cease to hold it. In fact, there have been situations where the disposable email address is properly used and the holder opts to forward it to their actual email address. In cases where there is any compromise on the email, the uninvited email is usually rooted to a special folder, or rejected as undeliverable.

Flexibility

The disposable email address changes every time the owner dislocates to another area. The IP will change as well and all the account holder will need to do is let their service provider to know about it, and they will upgrade that entity immediately.

Disadvantages of on disposable email usage

  • Confusion creation. In some cases, the provider of the disposable email confuses the owner’s identity. This is very unprofessional and annoying to the holder and prospective ones.

  • Most of the users of disposable emails are people banned from using other emails because of spamming. Disposable emails will make this easier for them.

  • Some forums like wiki may ban you from their forums if they detect that you are using a disposable email.

  • Site operators may ban disposable emails because that means that they do not get to generate enough revenue by selling their user emails addresses as that means that they have a low market value.

  • There is still the possibility of spammers getting new emails by using different domain names. This is a big challenge to legitimate disposable emails users.

  • Although this is uncommon, the possibility of the website being hacked into is a big blow to the disposable email account holder.

How to avoid uninvited emails on disposable email accounts

Determining whether the domain used by the spammer is valid and actual; if it is not, return the email as undeliverable. Banning the sender of the email permanently

Have the option of hiding the email address of the disposable email account holder such that a person sending an email cannot know the email address. This will prevent spam and trash and consequently allow the users to use their real email addresses.

Conclusion

It is very frustrating to receive spam emails and trash emails on our real email addresses. The solution is getting a disposable email address. However, it is not guaranteed that it will prevent those problems completely given that challenges it faces. Some of the good things about disposable emails is that they will help you hide your identity and participate in discussion forums and comment on blogs and website posting among many other activities. You can also receive emails without the sender knowing your email address. Also, if the email is not corrupted in any way, you will be able to add it o your email address. However, they face challenges as outlined above including hackers and spammers. It has been said that even some reputable company’s sell third party email addresses and send spam emails as well. The truth is that it is hard to maintain the disposable email address but it certainly has several advantages over the traditional emails, which makes it a pretty good idea. To sum it all up, you can sign up for a disposable email to benefit in the ways discussed above but be aware of the shortcomings as well.