Articles in Category: Email Privacy

Issues around the privacy of your email, who can see it and when, and steps you might take to keep it more secure.

A magnifying glass over a maze of passages all showing various portions of text.

How Do I Tell Who Sent an Email?

It’s extremely unlikely. I’ll walk you through why that is and one way you might get lucky.

A 16:9 photorealistic image showing a magnifying glass hovering over an email icon. The scene is set on a desktop background, with the magnifying glass closely examining the email icon, symbolizing scrutiny and attention to detail. The email icon should look digital and modern, representing electronic communication, and the magnifying glass should have a realistic and detailed appearance, with a clear lens and metallic frame.

How Can Newsletter Senders Tell That I Haven’t Opened Their Newsletter?

It’s impossible to truly determine if someone opened an email, but newsletters worrying about their reputation try to get an idea.

No Forwarding

Can I Stop Others from Forwarding Messages?

It’s not only impossible to prevent email from being forwarded; you can’t even prevent that forward from being altered, forged or defaced.

Encrypted Email

Is My Email Account Private?

If someone else shares or administers your email account, then your privacy is at risk.

Email

How Can I Tell if Someone’s Reading My Email?

It can be very difficult — perhaps impossible — to determine if your mail’s being read before you get to it.

No Entry

How Do I Stop Someone from Emailing Me?

Sometimes you want to keep someone from contacting you. Ignoring them is often simplest, but there are tools to help as well.

Who Is That Email From?

How Do I Find Out Who Owns an Email Address?

Finding out who owns an email address is difficult at best. There’s little you can do on your own, but if you’re being harassed, law enforcement may help.

Forwarded?

How Do I Get an Email Forward Notification When Someone Forwards My Message?

Several urban legends would have you believe that when you forward an email, it can somehow be tracked. It cannot. Period. I’ll explain why that is.

Stop Compromising the Privacy of Others

How Using BCC Reduces Spam

Using BCC on forwarded email is one way to reduce the amount of spam your recipients might get.

Who's on the BCC line?

How Do I View the BCC Recipients on an Email I’ve Received?

“BCC” is a way to send copies of email without all the recipients being visible. But can you still view the BCC’ed?

Encrypted Email

Can Someone See Encrypted Email?

Encrypted email cannot be sniffed, but chances are you aren’t using encrypted email. I’ll explain what I mean and what you might want to do.

Using a computer at school.

Can My School See Email I Send and Recieve?

Your school can see email being sent and received across its systems, and there’s no way to know whether or not they’re actually looking.

Anonymous?

How Do I Send Free Anonymous Email?

Sending anonymous email ranges from easy to complex, depending on the likelihood of someone going the extra mile to identify you.

If I Do These Things, Will I Be Anonymous?

Anonymity on the internet is really, really hard. Some of the practices we might use to stay anonymous could still be leaking identifiable, traceable information.

How Do I Encrypt Email?

It’s surprisingly difficult to encrypt email. We’ll look at a practical solution that anyone can use, as well as the way things “should” work.

Internet Abuse

How Do I Find Out Who’s Sending Harassing Email?

Both children and adults receive harassing or abusive email. Sadly, there’s no easy way to trace it back to a sender who doesn’t want to be found.

Emails Opened?

Emails Opened? Is There a Reliable Way to Tell?

It’s very common to want confirmation that an email has been opened, delivered, or read. In the age of spam, it’s simply not possible with any accuracy.

Email With Remote Image

How Does Blocking Pictures in an Email Protect My Privacy?

Email programs commonly block remote images. I’ll look at why, and how spammers and others use remote images for good and evil.

Someone's Peeking!

Can My Company See My Personal Email?

In a work environment all bets are off. If they’re looking hard enough, an employer can see everything you do on a work computer.

Google

Is Gmail’s targeted advertising a bad thing?

Of course Gmail can read your email. How else would they be able to filter it for spam? But “who” or “what” is reading it, and does it really matter?

Vault

Can Backups of Email Be Hacked?

Not just email, but any information that is anywhere on “the cloud” is subject to backups. That means there is a copy somewhere. Is this a problem?

Emails Hacked!

Can an ISP tell me who’s reading my email?

It’s typically impossible for the average computer user to determine who’s reading your email, particularly since tracing through a an IP address is virtually impossible with legal assistance. The best option is securing your account from any prying eyes from the start.

Why Are Electronic Greeting Cards a Bad Idea?

Electronic greeting cards, or ecards, seem like a nice idea, but often end up giving the recipient more than you intended, in the form of spam or worse.