I recently offered someone at the other end of the world coffee. After all: friends don’t let friends drink bad coffee. Since that person is on the other end of the world, I was thinking Starbucks gift card. Well they do that, except they need an email address to send the voucher to.

So at that point I asked for their email address. I had no interest in actually getting their email address. I don’t really know them after all, but I do enjoy their blog and wanted to send them a gift card.

Well that’s over and it didn’t work out, which is fine, but it got me thinking about avoiding handing out email addresses, be it to sites you register with or to people you don’t know. And I realised that not everyone knows how to get a temporary e-mail address for that purpose.

So here comes my “Public Service Announcement”:

There are actually services out there like MeltMail, where you enter your real email address, and they will give you an email address that will work for anywhere between 3 hours and a day. Alternatively you could use AirMail which works as long as you keep your browser window open.

It really is that simple. While it’s not protecting your identity, against molochs such as the NSA, it is sufficient to protect you against spam and random stalkers. So play with it and see what mischief you can create ;)