Often when you sign up for useful, free websites online, they want your email address. They do this for security reasons (to confirm that you actually do want to sign up and that you are who you say you are). But some may have ulterior motives . . . .
There is always that threat lingering in the back of your mind: is my inbox going to start getting flooded by spam?
If you have a gmail address, there’s a little known trick you can use to thwart their attempts.
Google allows using an alias by adding the “+” symbol to the end of your address.
So, if your address is “name@gmail.com,” then any email sent to “name+blablabla@gmail.com” will be delivered to your “name” account. Google just ignores the plus symbol and everything after it.
But you can use such an alias when you sign up for a new service. If you start getting spam, check the address the spam is sent to. If it contains your alias, then you know who gave you away.
Then, with gmail’s filters, you can easily divert the junk into your junk-mail dumpster.
You can read Google’s brief explanation about this feature by clicking the link below.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/12096?hl=en