Don't use your real email address when shopping this Black Friday – use this tool instead

Black Friday deals are back! A time to get the best bargain on everything you need for the upcoming holidays.

Unfortunately, it’s also an active time for scammers, cybercriminals, and data brokers, and you’ll need to enter some personal information while shopping.

That means if the shop experiences a data breach, it could lead to financial fraud or identity theft. Thankfully, one of the best VPN services, Surfshark, has a handy tool called Alternative ID that can help protect your personal information while browsing the best Black Friday deals.

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What is Surfshark's Alternative ID?

Surfshark’s Alternative ID feature is included with all plan tiers, and it’s an excellent way to avoid sharing your personal information when prompted to sign up for marketing content. It’s also useful for buying digital merchandise via anonymous payment methods like crypto or PayPal.

You just set your preferences for gender, birth date, and country, and the tool generates an alternative name, age, address, and email for you. That’s not all it does to protect your digital identity; other benefits are:

• An autofill feature to effortlessly fill out signup forms.
• Minimizes the number of marketing and spam emails you receive.
• Allows for anonymous purchase and delivery of digital goods (e.g., gift cards).

Best practices for using Alternative ID

While Alternative ID is a great way to minimize marketing emails and spammy flyers in your mailbox, it won’t privatize any address you use at checkout if you need physical delivery of goods. The feature also won’t work well if your name doesn’t match the name and address associated with a personal credit card.

Here are a few best practices that can help while using Alternative ID at checkout:

• Use anonymous payment methods (e.g., PayPal, cryptocurrency, Venmo, gift cards, or prepaid debit cards).
• Enter your alternative address in the payment details, then place your actual physical address in the delivery field (this makes it look like a gift).
• Use digital delivery for gift cards and software whenever possible.

Marking the purchase as a gift may help you avoid promotional flyers sent via postal mail. Digital delivery is a great option because you have access to your Alternative ID-generated email.

This means you can still receive the information needed to activate digital goods, including gift cards and software.

Surfshark recommends using its browser extension (available for Chrome, Safari, and Edge) for the best results while utilizing the Alternative ID feature.

Why you should use Alternative ID

Black Friday browsing and shopping are a great reason to use Surfshark’s alternative ID, but it’s useful all year.

Using generated credentials instead of personal data minimizes your online footprint and increases your privacy.

That way, you can reduce the risk of identity theft and potential data leaks.