Even though the ability to use tagged Gmail addresses has been around for ages, very few people seem to know about this option. Using tagged email addresses is one of the very best ways to discover whether someone or some company is sharing your email address, whether intentionally or through a data leak. Here’s how to do it (it’s very easy!)

Today Google rolled out a new feature for their Google Adwords advertisers (the businesses you see advertising in the “Ads by Google”): “give us the email addresses on your mailing list and we’ll target ads to them.” Google calls this “Customer Match”. We call it “email privacy fiasco”. Here’s why.

If you received a notice from one or another company with whom you do business or have done business in the past, saying that your email address has been compromised due to a data security breach at email service provider (ESP) Epsilon (due to their customers’ email lists being hacked and stolen), you’re not alone. Oh, you are so not alone. Banks, large merchants, and others, have all had their entire list of customers’ email addresses swiped and leaked due to the Epsilon data breach. Chase Bank, Citi Bank, Best Buy, Krogers – even Disney, have all been affected – as have their customers. Of course, lots of people receiving these notices will assume that they are phishing attempts (and there will undoubtedly be phishing attempts riding on the coat tails of this fiasco). Here is the complete list as we know it today – if you have received a notice saying that your email address has been compromised, please add the name of the company involved to the list here.