Posted on August 23, 2006 at 12:29 PM in @earthlink
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
We recently sent out an email to our customers to tell them about the full launch of the Anonymous Email Address feature I wrote about in beta a few months ago. One of our customers has become so wary of scam emails he asked on Earthling "Is this the real deal?"
It is the real deal, and apparently not a moment too soon.
For the uninitiated, it's an add-on to your EarthLink e-mail account that gives you anonymized addresses that point to your real e-mail address, to protect your real address from spammers. There are two ways you can get it -- it's free for current EarthLink internet access customers (i.e. if you have a DSL, Cable, Wi-Fi, or Dial-up account). Or if you have a free e-mail account, you can get it and other features by upgrading to Premium Mail.
There's a flash demo of how it works here, and there's more information on the AEA product page.
If you're a current internet access or Premium Mail user, you can go to protectionpack.earthlink.net to turn on Anonymous E-mail Addresses for your account.
Comments
I for one like this idea. Very cool there dude.
Posted by Ben | August 24, 2006 6:23 AM
ProtectionPack is the best thing I've ever seen in an email service. My dad is a new EarthLink subscriber and I'm operating as a sub-account but why do I see ads? My previous AT&T Yahoo! account had zero ads. It's a bit disappointing if you ask me; we're paying for internet access and you're still trying to make money off us?
Posted by Myles | August 24, 2006 2:47 PM
This is the first I'm hearing of this. I got no email about it.
Posted by JudE | August 24, 2006 8:00 PM
Great. But I get 5 addresses. If I delete one, there are no instructions for replacing it with another.
Posted by Stephen Bell | August 25, 2006 1:52 AM
Myles, thanks for your feedback on WebMail. The presence of ads isn't something that's changed with the release of ProtectionPack. I've passed your thoughts on to the product team. FYI, today, you can get an ad-free experience if you get your mail via POP, or you can upgrade to premium mail to get rid of them as well.
JudE - I'm not sure how or to what group the email went out, but you can get the same information on the product page and in my blog entry above. If you'd like, I can look in to who it went out to and email you offline.
Stephen - Good question. I know the topic of if and how you can get more addresses has come up but am not sure what the answer was -- I'll ask the product manager about it and get back to you.
Posted by Dave C. | August 25, 2006 2:48 PM
I also wondered about the delete/replacement issue. It took me 7 or 8 tries to sign up & I was disconneted from livechat when I tried to find help there - followed with a phone call & got a rep who had not a glimmer of an idea what I was talking about (at 3 in the morning). While I was waiting for him to consult his co-wokers, I tried once again & got my anonymous E-Mail adds - then had to explain to the rep what I was taking about & where to find the info.
Posted by Lin K | August 27, 2006 12:04 AM
Stephen - I spoke to the product manager this morning -- apparently many of our members have made similar requests. She confirmed that we are looking at both increasing the number of addresses you get and adding the ability to replace deleted addresses with new ones in the next release.
Posted by Dave C. | August 28, 2006 11:39 AM
Replacing the address is not something you should just be looking into, it's something that you MUST implement now.
This has no purpose unless I can wipe those addresses out and get five new ones. I might as well just open another gmail account.
It should be totally simple script on your part and it's done.
Please, please implement this as soon as possible.
I already wiped my five out because I incorrectly assumed that I would get five new ones.
BTW, if I do a search for ProtectionPack your search engine comes back and offers me "Did you mean "Protection Pack", and then offers me a series of articles all talking about ProtectionPack.
Thanks,
John
Posted by John S | October 13, 2006 8:22 PM
I also incorrectly assumed that I could create 5 more. I wish Earthlink would allow the ability to create new ones, up to 5. Other than that, it is a great idea.
Posted by William Collins | November 28, 2006 11:43 PM