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Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It.

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Summary

This article discusses the increasing use of email addresses by companies to track people's activities and target them with ads, and provides ways for people to protect their privacy such as creating multiple email addresses, using email-masking tools, and opting out of certain tracking systems when possible. It also recommends taking a moderate approach by juggling a few email addresses related to different interests, so that companies will only know about a specific interest rather than having access to all of your data.

Q&As

What are some of the methods companies are using to track people's activities across sites and apps?
Companies are using cookies, invisible trackers planted inside websites and apps, and Unified ID 2.0 to track people's activities across sites and apps.

How can consumers limit the ability of advertising companies to target them based on their email address?
Consumers can create multiple email addresses, use email-masking tools, opt out of UID 2.0, or do nothing.

What is Unified ID 2.0 and what does it enable?
Unified ID 2.0 is an advertising framework developed by the Trade Desk that transforms an email address into a token composed of a string of digits and characters. It enables advertisers to link accounts together based on the token and target people with relevant ads.

How is sharing an email address more revealing than other pieces of basic information?
An email address can be linked to other data, including where you went to school, the make and model of the car you drive, and your ethnicity.

What is the Trade Desk and what is its role in the digital advertising industry?
The Trade Desk is an ad-technology company in Ventura, Calif. It is responsible for developing the Unified ID 2.0 advertising framework.

AI Comments

👍 This article is an informative and insightful look into the world of digital advertising and how our email addresses are being used. It provides useful advice on how to better protect our data and manage our digital privacy.

👎 This article is overly long and full of technical jargon which makes it difficult to understand. It also fails to provide clear, concise advice on how to protect our data.

AI Discussion

Me: It's about how companies are using email addresses to track people across sites and apps to serve them targeted ads. It talks about how companies are using invisible trackers, cookies, and email addresses to do this and how you can limit this kind of tracking.

Friend: That's really interesting - it's scary to think that companies can track our activities with our email address. What are the implications of this article?

Me: The implications of this article are that companies are able to collect and use our data to create detailed profiles about us and target us with ads. This can be concerning for many people, as it can lead to a lack of privacy and a feeling of being watched or tracked. Additionally, it can lead to discrimination when companies target people based on their demographic information. It's important to be aware of how companies are using our data and to take steps to protect our privacy.

Action items

Create multiple email addresses for different activities and interests.
Use email-masking tools such as Apple's Hide My Email and Mozilla's Firefox Relay to create aliases for logging in to sites and apps.
Opt out of UID 2.0 ad targeting when possible by entering your email address at https://transparentadvertising.org.

Technical terms

Digital Bread Crumb: A digital bread crumb is a piece of data that is used to track a person's activity across websites and apps.
Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored on a user's computer by websites and apps to track their activity.
Unified ID 2.0 (UID 2.0): UID 2.0 is an advertising framework developed by the Trade Desk that allows advertisers to track people's activities across sites and apps without using cookies.
Email Aliases: Email aliases are alternate email addresses that are used to log in to websites and apps.
Opt Out: Opting out is the process of declining to participate in a particular activity or program. In the context of this article, opting out refers to declining to share your email address with websites and apps.