On New Year's Resolutions and Email

My use of the AKA3 email alias app in daily life

April 9, 2024 -- Ron Kreutzer

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2024 was to never use my real email address when asked, either in person or online. I wanted to keep my email address private and not have it sold or shared with others. I also wanted to be able to block senders if they started sending me spam. I have kept this resolution and plan to continue doing so.

The tool that I have been using to help me keep this resolution is the AKA3 email alias app. This app allows me to create an alias, on-the-fly, for each sender, instead of my real email address. I know a lot about this tool, as I developed it back in 2019. One of my goals after I (semi-) retired is to create technology tools that I would use daily. I figured that if they were useful to me, others would find them useful as well.

The first app I created was called WineFlavs and allowed me to find wines by flavors. It was very useful to me, as I was able to try new wines that had a good probability of being to my liking. Unfortunately, the source for the wine ratings went out of business, and there was no alternative free source of wine ratings, nor any interest from the major wine apps in using this idea, so I put that app on hold.

I then created the AKA3 service, as I was tired of playing whack-a-mole by unsubscribing to spam emails, only to see them reappear from an affiliated company. I replicated the best features that I found in the marketplace and then further enhanced it with password-less login using web3 technology.

The latest app that I developed is ID Pocket. This app allows you to store your digital identity documents in a secure, encrypted manner. There are other blog posts that talk more about this app.

Once you setup the AKA3 service, you rarely need to login to the app or website. When you are asked for your email address, you simply make one up on-the-fly, using the format specified in the service. The service will then forward the email to your real email address. If you start getting spam from that sender, and you can't unsubscribe, you can block them in the app, and they will no longer be able to send you email.

The AKA3 service is focused on privacy (see the privacy section at the AKA3 home page). The only piece of personal information that we collect is your email address. We also remove tracking images from incoming emails to further preserve your privacy. You can reply to any email you receive, and the recipient sees your alias email address, not your real email address.

You login to the app using a web3 wallet, such as ID Pocket or MetaMask. We use the WalletConnect component to provide this feature, and the latest version of WalletConnect allows you to use your email address if you don't yet have a wallet.

This is a subscription-based service that costs about $1/month. You can subscribe/pay in the app, or you can use the web version to pay in cryptocurrency or with a credit card.

More information is at AKA3

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