Google is working on a privacy-focused feature on Gmail that will let you create email aliases, called “Shielded Email” to prevent spam. Android Authority found hints of the new security feature in the code for Google Play Services and confirmed that the option is also in the settings menu for the autofill feature, though it’s not working yet.
Nowadays, every service, app, and website requires you to create an account, and sharing your email address here and there has become a normal habit.
Gmail does a really good job of fighting and filtering spam, but every time you share your email address, you run the risk of receiving unwanted contacts. It is now becoming common to find that people have email addresses just for temporary registrations. This is the case as using one’s primary email just makes it hard to access important mail amid marketing and random stuff.
It looks like Google has fixed the problem of having to share your email address online. Evidence of this was found in version 24.45.33 of Google Play Services. The feature is supposedly called “Shielded Email”. Shielded Email appears to be a system for creating one-time or limited use email aliases that forward messages to your main account. It appears to be curated for apps that request an email address.
There are many reasons to keep your email address private, not just to prevent spam. In fact, keeping your email private reduces the extent to which your online activities can be tracked and protects you from possible future data breaches.
This feature is still in development, so there is no certainty on how exactly it would work. However, it seems similar to Apple’s email hiding feature, which also creates an alias so you don’t have to provide your iCloud email everywhere.
