There’s no argument that Gmail is the best free email service. Notable features include – Maximum Storage (~8GB ), POP3 Mail Support, Mail Labels, Mail Alias, Filters, Theme Support/Customization. Now the Social Google BUZZ is also integrated in Gmail.
Taking in account of all these features and sudden exposure of your Gmail ID as your Public Profile by the BUZZ it’s necessary that you learn some tricks/Gmail features to protect your Gmail from SPAMS.
With launch of so many nice and handy web services day to day, we just tend to sign up and try out new services as quick as possible. But you should take care that your online identity i.e your email is being shared there and there is no guarantee that these new sites will respect your privacy. They might sell your mails to spammers and you might suddenly end up in hundreds of spam mails in your inbox.
Further, If you give a quick look at your Gmail Profile URL there’s your email ID openly Buzzing around. This also increases chance that you’ll be spammed. It is just a matter of minute to extract your email id from your happy tweeted Google Buzz profile URL. A simple Twitter Search like this will disclose thousands of Tweets containing Buzz Profile URL.
Here are two ways that you can use with ease so that spam are better handled.
1. Gmail’s Mail Aliasing Feature:
Your gmail id is something like urid@gmail.com
Note: gmail id must be at least 6 char long. i’ve used urid for illustration.
You can create mail aliases as:
urid+anyname@gmail.com
Where anyname can be anything as your need, but @ sign in not supported in between. The specialty of aliased mail address is that any mail sent to this email will reach your inbox.
You can create any number of aliases for each different sites you sign up.
This will ensure that mails from each individual sites are managed with a unique aliased email id and if you noticed some spam behavior from this aliased mail you can simply create filter or report spam for the incoming mails.
Now, when you sign up to a new site use any friendly mail alias. Note it down for future in case you need to use password recovery options. When you sign up you are at your will sending your mail address to the site’s database. But we can’t be sure unless some trusted sites that those mail addresses will be kept confidential. If such sites sold your aliased mail address to other sites then you’ll clearly see in your inbox that your mail is being sold around. You can then create filters to send this messages to trash or report the site site you signed up as spam.
Example Use of mail alias:
If you are signing up for a new sport site, create an alias as:
urid+sport_site_name@gmail.com
If you are signing up for a new music site, create an alias as:
urid+music_site_name@gmail.com
2. Change your Public Google BUZZ URL to string of numbers.
People are sharing their Google Profile all way in public pages,like in their twitter. Since, there’s one to one mapping of your email address to the Google Profile the shared profile url may attract spammers.
I have mentioned above that, a simple Twitter Search like this will disclose thousands of Tweets containing Buzz Profile URL. or any Google search will display the shared URLs. So, you should take care sharing this URL.
You can change your profile URL to some random strings of numbers from Google Profile Edit page.
At the bottom of the page under Profile URL section, change your profile url to those strings of numbers.
Now you can freely share your buzz URL around with some lowered spam risk.
Happy Buzzing. Happy Tweeting.
Follow me in Twitter: @bhu1st
Here’s my BUZZ: Bhupal Sapkota