Cybersecurity expert reveals simple trick to stop companies from tracking your online shopping

We’re conditioned to think our email address is harmless. Most of us think it’s just an ID, a way to get receipts and shipping updates, but that’s not it.

Your email is the skeleton key to your online identity. It’s what companies use to build behavioral profiles, target ads, link purchases and, sometimes worse, facilitate fraud after a breach. And when you reuse the same email address everywhere, you make that key universal.

To keep things private, I use an alias for online shopping to stay anonymous, cut down on spam and more. Let’s discuss what aliases are, why they matter and how they quietly turn the tables in your favor.

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A woman browses the Amazon website on her laptop Sept. 29, 2024. (Serene Lee/SOPA Images/LightRocket)

How email aliases help you stay anonymous online

Each time you enter your main email on a shopping site, you give that company a lasting way to connect your behavior across different platforms, devices and timeframes. They might hash or encrypt your email, but the behavioral patterns remain. You can still be tracked, but aliases interrupt that chain.

Instead of sharing my actual email address, I create a unique one for each website. The emails still reach me through forwarding, but the company never sees my real address. That small change prevents them from linking my activity with other accounts or sites. It is not a perfect solution, but it adds just enough friction to disrupt the tracking systems.

Every alias I use becomes a kind of tracker. If one starts getting spam, I know which site sold or lost my data. Most people don’t know where the breach happened, they just assume “it happens.” I take a different approach. When an alias starts getting unwanted emails, I do not try to unsubscribe or set up filters or waste time guessing. I simply disable the alias, and the problem is gone.

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A spam phishing email is displayed on a laptop screen March 21, 2022. Retail companies often sell shopper data, leading to unwanted spam and phishing messages. (Peter Dazeley)

Stop companies from tracking you with email aliases

The average e-commerce site uses between 15 and 30 third-party scripts, analytics trackers, ad pixels and behavioral beacons, according to a study. Even if the site itself is honest, its stack probably isn’t. Your email passes through layers of infrastructure, mailing tools, CRM platforms, shipping plugins. And all it takes is one misconfiguration or a careless developer for your data to end up in the wrong hands.

An alias reduces the blast radius. If the site gets breached, your core identity remains untouched.

Aliases don’t just protect privacy, they improve behavior. When I started using them, I found myself thinking more clearly about where I was signing up and why. The mental pause required to generate a new alias made me more deliberate. And it gave structure to the mess. I could set rules like all product warranties going to products@myalias.com, all newsletters to news@myalias.com.

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Create email aliases for better online privacy

An alias alone isn’t enough to stay safe out there. You also need a secure email provider to start with. By creating email aliases, you can protect your information and reduce spam. These aliases forward messages to your primary address, making it easier to manage incoming communications and avoid data breaches. 

For recommendations on private and secure email providers that offer alias addresses, visit Cyberguy.com.

A woman browses Best Buy on her smartphone while online shopping. (Serene Lee/SOPA Images/LightRocket)

Kurt’s key takeaway

We’ve made progress when it comes to password hygiene. Many of us now use password managers and enable two-factor authentication, but when it comes to email, the habits haven’t changed much. Most people still rely on a single email address for everything, including shopping, banking, subscriptions, work and even family communication. That’s not just inefficient but also a security risk. Using email aliases is a simple way to fragment your digital identity. It adds complexity for attackers and reduces the chances of a single breach affecting multiple accounts.

Would you still use your main email for everything if you knew it made you easier to track? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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