What is Spam? Spam is an unsolicited message sent typically to a large number of users, for the purposes of advertising, phishing, spreading malware, etc.
While a few spam emails may seem harmless at first, they become rapidly annoying and time-consuming. It's a real waste of time to have to delete and report all your spam emails and search for important email through a pile of garbage. It takes a real toll on someone's focus and productivity. You also put yourself at risk for malware and phishing attacks.
The problem with spam is that once your email address is out in the open, you can't stop it unless you get another email address and lose all your contacts. You might try to report and block every spam email but they will just keep on pouring into your inbox from different senders. It's a common practice for spammers to trade lists and cross-promote, so if you've got on only one list, be sure that you’ll get in others pretty soon.
Most email addresses are compromised through sold email lists and data breaches. Businesses that you work with might sell your email, the company that you work for might do the same. The issue here is that it's very hard to find what company compromised your email, hence the huge amount of sold email lists.
The only way to stop spam is to prevent it thought burner email addresses. A burner email or a disposable email address is an approach where a unique and anonymous email address is used for every contact. The benefit is that if anyone compromises the address or abuses it, the address owner can easily cancel it without affecting any of their other contacts.
Using a disposable email address for every service that you sign up to has many benefits. Firstly, you have the assurance that your personal email address is not out in the open. Secondly, you can finally spot the services that sold your email address. If you get an email for discounted sunglasses sent to a newsletter email address then you know exactly who shared your email. You can even call them out. The last and the most important one is the fact that you can delete the compromised burner email address and so the spam sent to it won't reach your inbox anymore.
