How to Hide Your Email Address When Posting to Public Forums

When you post your email address in a public place, you are nearly guaranteed of becoming overwhelmed with spam. The reason for this is simply that spammers use robots to scour the Internet looking for anything that resembles an email address. There are, however, a few ways to prevent your address from being used.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• An email account
• A computer with Internet access

1. When you are posting a blog, comment or any other public post, do not use your email address unless absolutely necessary.
2. If you have to post your email address, use a clever variation. Instead of [e-mail], type it out: me at mymail dot com. While real people will be able to translate this, spam bots will not.
3. If posting a comment to a blog, you are sometimes required to provide a real address, and spelling it out will not work. What to do then? Sign up for a new email account and use that one for the purposes of posting. Don’t bother to check it because it will be full of spam.
4. Do not give your email address to other people unless you think that you can trust them. If they post your email somewhere, then you are back at square one.

Tips & Warnings

• Free email services will allow you to create multiple accounts, so you can designate one as your forums account, allowing it to collect spam instead of your main email address.
• Some spam can actually be dangerous to your computer. Do not open emails or click links from people that you do not recognize.