Using Gmail to Track Companies That Leak Your Data

They dropped their "don't be evil" motto for a reason

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Even though I've shown that bigger companies don't leak data (or didn't used to anyway), that doesn't stop smaller sites/companies. An easier way to see if someone is sharing your e-mail address when you don't want to is to use variations of your own e-mail address for each site. Google's e-mail service allows you to add data to your e-mail address and have it still successfully reach your inbox as described at this Makeuseof.com article. As of today, this tip does NOT work with Hotmail.

The short of it is that if you use your gmail name add a "+" sign and then write anything you want to remember a web service's name (usually just their name), the e-mail address will still work, but you'll have a code that lets you know if the company is selling your data.

For example, if I sign up with Yahoo, I might use gmailname+yahoo@gmail.com where gmailname is my gmail account name. Now if Yahoo sells their database without modification and another company uses it, I'll get an e-mail for Canadian meds or what-have-you with a "TO" address of gmailname+yahoo@gmail.com. When I get such an e-mail, it will be blatantly obvious who sold me out.

With help of a friend that uses Gmail, I was able to confirm that it works exactly as described in the article so I will definitely be using Gmail for all further account signups.