Hide your real address: this may be Gmail’s next “killer feature”

Recent developments in Gmail have focused on the deployment of features linked to artificial intelligence — writing an email for you, for example. They also sought to make the use of webmail even more convenient, by summarizing the essential information in an email, eliminating all the superfluous.

All of these advanced features are great, but sometimes it’s the simplest things that show the most promise. In any case, it is this feeling that predominates in the editorial team with the recent discovery of the site Android Authority. In its November 15 edition, the site spotted a prototype tool to better combat spam.

Disposable aliases on Gmail

The idea? Create a disposable address system, via aliases associated with your real Gmail mailbox. Thus, Internet users could send an unimportant email, instead of their authentic address. Mail that arrives in this disposable email would then be redirected (or displayed) to the main mailbox.

In this niche, Google would absolutely not be at the forefront. We can cite Mozilla, which launched a service called Firefox Relay in 2020. The service generates anonymized addresses, which are used to register on sites for which you may not wish to leave personal data (especially if your email is in the form of (email protected)).

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Apple also has an equivalent setting, called Hide my email address. It is linked to the iCloud+ subscription and also allows you to “ generate unique, random email addresses that automatically forward messages to your personal inbox “. The confidentiality argument is also put forward.

Even though Google wouldn’t be at the forefront of this feature, it’s a good thing that it’s interested in it — here’s hoping the project goes through development. Even though Google is making significant efforts to combat spam, spam continues to circulate widely. This option, named “ Shielded Email ”, could be an answer.

Advantages to consider

There are advantages to using a disposable email address:

• you use an anonymous email, with an alias which does not reveal anything about your identity beforehand (zigjf89u3h@… rather than firstname.lastname@…);
• you can use it on second-rate sites, to avoid communicating your real email anywhere;
• in the event of excessive spam linked to this anonymous email, it will be possible to deactivate or delete the alias concerned (and create another);
• on a more cyber level, the option could also have an advantage: if a service on which you have an account is compromised, with the added bonus of a leak of identifiers and passwords, the email that would end up in the wild would be “just” the throwaway version and not the real address.
• Be careful, however: if you still click on a phishing email via this alias, you remain exposed.

At this stage, we do not know to what extent Google will push this idea that our colleagues spotted by digging into the source code of an advanced version of the Gmail application for Android. Development is ongoing, and if necessary, Google will not fail to formalize this service once it is ready.