Disposable email address

Disposable email addressing (DEA) refers to an approach where a unique email address is used for every contact or entity. The benefit is that if anyone compromises the address or utilises it in connection with email abuse, the address owner can easily cancel (or "dispose" of) it without affecting any of their other contacts.

Such disposable addresses are generally provided by a service company (paid or free) that forwards mail from the DEA to the actual address, but email sub-addressing techniques can also be used to provide a subset of similar advantages.

Disposable email addressing sets up a different, unique email address for every sender/recipient combination. It operates most usefully in scenarios where someone may sell or release an email address to spam lists or to other unscrupulous entities. The most common situations of this type involve online registration for sites offering discussion groups, bulletin boards, chat rooms, online shopping, and file hosting services. In a time when email spam has become an everyday nuisance, and when identity theft threatens, DEAs can serve as a convenient tool for protecting Internet users.

Disposable email addresses can be cancelled if someone starts to use the address in a manner that was not intended by the creator. Examples are the accidental release of an email to a spam list, or if the address was procured by spammers. Alternatively, the user may simply decide not to receive further correspondence from the sender. Whatever the cause, DEA allows the address owner to take unilateral action by simply cancelling the address in question. Later, the owner can determine whether to update the recipient or not.

Disposable email addresses typically forward to one or more real email mailboxes where the owner receives and reads messages. The contact with whom a DEA is shared never learns the real email address of the user. If a database manages the DEA, it can also quickly identify the expected sender of each message by retrieving the associated contact name of each unique DEA. Used properly, DEA can also help identify which recipients handle email addresses in a careless or illegitimate manner. Moreover, it can serve as a good tool for spotting fake messages or phishers.

...
Wikipedia