How to Protect Your Identity When Shopping Online
Disposable email is one of three small habits that, together, dramatically reduce your exposure to online retailers.
Online retailers are not in the privacy business. Their incentive is to know you well enough to retarget you for years. Three small habits flip that asymmetry.
Habit 1: Disposable email for one-off purchases
For a single-shot purchase from a store you do not plan to revisit, give them a disposable address. The transaction completes; the relationship does not.
Habit 2: Virtual cards
Most banks now offer virtual card numbers you can lock to a single merchant or single charge. Combine with disposable email and the merchant has nothing reusable: not the card, not the inbox.
Habit 3: Minimal address
Leave optional fields blank. The vast majority of "tell us about yourself" prompts are pure data collection. Refuse the trade.
None of these is heroic effort. Together they remove 80% of the data the average online retailer was hoping to collect on you.