This e-mail will self destruct

This is from a longer tech column I wrote for the WDL this week. It should appear in Friday or Sunday’s paper.

If you’re getting tired of giving out your e-mail address just to register for a website or online service, get a self-destructing e-mail address from 10MinuteMail.com.
The site automatically creates an e-mail address that can be accessed from the website.
After 10 minutes of use, the address self-destructs, giving you plenty of time to respond to verification e-mails but not enough time for your e-mail box to get inundated with loads of spam and junk mail.
10minutemail’s developer, Devon Hillard, said the idea for the site came while he was trying to learn SEAM, a new software framework from Jboss.
“I always learn things more easily when I’m actually building something new, versus simply reading a manual,” Hillard said. “The idea for the application itself occurred to me when I noticed how much spam I was getting — several thousand a day, although most get handled by spamassassin and other tools — and how often I had to provide my e-mail address to a site that I really didn’t trust not to sell it, just to be able to reply to a topic on a forum for instance.”
The website went live on Satuday, Nov. 25 and after sending a couple e-mails to friends the site took off.
“So far the site has served about 150,000 e-mail addresses,” Hillard said. “The counter got reset during a server bounce and the site has had 1.2 million hits.”
Not bad for a program put together just to learn a new software framework.

10 Minute Mail: www.10minutemail.com