How do plus addresses for e-mail work?
Did you know that you can also use MyWebspace e-mail addresses like this
j.doe+anyword@example.com
and that those e-mails also end up in your mailbox?
Why is this useful?
Let's say your e-mail address is j.doe@example.com and you sign up for an online account at Contoso. With plus addressing, you can enter j.doe+contoso@example.com instead of your actual e-mail address.
Or you want to go on a trip and book a ticket at Margie's Travel. To do so, you could use this e-mail address, for example: j.doe+margiestravel@example.com
If Contoso is then hacked for whatever reason and all customer data is stolen, it is very likely that you will receive all kinds of obscure e-mails afterwards – fake e-mails that look as if they came from your bank, for example. If the recipient address is j.doe+contoso@example.com instead of your regular e-mail address, you know that you had better not open this e-mail or click any links. Instead, you should create a filter in your mail client or your webmail that deletes such e-mails in the future.
Using different e-mail addresses for different websites and services therefore has the following advantages:
- Traceability: you know which e-mail belongs to which website
- Privacy: if companies exchange your personal data, it is much harder to link it together because you used different e-mail addresses.
- Security: you can use not only different passwords but also different e-mail addresses.
Unfortunately, some websites consider the "+" character in e-mail addresses invalid. In that case, you can use the tilde (~), the equals sign (=), the percent sign (%) or the digit 8 instead of the plus sign.