Comments on: Privacy Tip #2: Mailinator

By: Jenn

Jenn — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:14:00 +0000

If this email is deleted in 24 hours, is there still a record of it that can be traced?

By: Vitamin B

Vitamin B — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:26:20 +0000

Thank God we still live in a world where you can get internet privacy, even if it comes at a price. Since we the people have been deemed unworthy to maintain our own internet privacy, what has the world come to?

By: hashbee

hashbee — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:26:32 +0000

pourri.fr (don't get misleaded by the .fr, it's in english also) is also a Mailinator like service, its domain name may be less banned from websites.

By: howie

howie — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:57:56 +0000

Paul Tyma’s Mailinator service has been around for several years now and in that time I’ve come across many websites that block it, including some of my own. If it’s blocked, then it can’t be used, but I suspect that if the day ever comes when it’s typically blocked then either Tyma or someone else will fill the void.

By: JP

JP — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 06:34:27 +0000

Mytrashmail.com provides a very similar service and is not associated with Mailinator.

By: Elliotte Rusty Harold

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:03:51 +0000

It’s certainly possible a company could block Mailinator addresses for registration. In practice I’ve never encountered one that did this. Mailinator itself says:

Every now and then you bump into a website that does not permit email addresses at mailinator.com (scoundrels!). Don’t fret. There is more than one domain pointing to the mailinator system. If you send email to one of the listed alternate domains – it will come to mailinator.com just as if you sent it directly. For example, stinky@mailinator.com is EXACTLY the same as stinky@fakeinformation.com. Other alternate domains include sogetthis.com, mailinater.com, and fakeinformation.com

If these got blocked too, they could always add another.

By: Wouter

Wouter — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 07:51:05 +0000

Hotmail is rejected too on some sites. For these cases the solution is just to pick an obscure free email account or forwarding service. A company would have to be pretty determined to block a substantial number of these services. At that point you know that they prioritize inconveniencing (savvy) customers over providing value, which means you no longer have to try their demo’s to know the quality of their software.

PS. A tip for the companies who do this: Make me trust you, if you want my real email-address.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:34:12 +0000

Any web-sites that require an email address can also start rejecting ones that have “mailinator.com” in them.

Then what?