Topmail Blog

Security Features, Announcements and Updates

— 3 min read

Advantages of an Ad-Free Email Service

There are several benefits of availing of ad free email services. This is due to the fact that email providers such as Gmail target you with ads based on your private email messages. In order to do this, they share data about you with businesses and individuals that have something to sell. In contrast, ad-free email is private and as a result, is also more secure.

Privacy Button For Ad Free Email

4 Important Reasons to avoid Email Services that show Ads

There are several reasons why online ads are a security risk and we have detailed the top four reasons why below.

1. Protect Your Online Identity With Ad Free Email

Any data which a third party can obtain about you provides the first point of contact for hacking and phishing. This can be through automated means or social engineering. For example, someone can use their existing knowledge of you to gain unauthorized access to a service you use. There have been countless cases of people blagging customer care at phone companies or other utilities, using only a single piece of information about a consumer. In an automated case however, it can simply be the wrong person having your name and email address that can make their attempts to phish you much more convincing. Think about it, ad free email can stop these invasive technologies from gathering information about your identity and using it to their advantage.

2. Display Advertisements Can Be Malware

When logged in free email providers such as Outlook.com show display advertisements in your inbox. Naturally, it can be quite unnerving to see ads side by side your personal information. More importantly, these ads are powered by Javascript code which runs in a shared security context with your email. There is no doubt that you are reliant on Microsoft to ensure that there are no malicious parties accessing their advertising platform. We are all aware that this is openly accessible to anyone who possesses a credit card. This poses one of the largest risks of entrusting free email providers with your information.

3. Ad Free Email Prevents Security Risks

Companies that need to read your email in order to provide their service will not want to encrypt your messages. Unlike ad free email providers, they wish to have you logged in to their services all of the time. There are also range of systems that need to see and manage your email for the purpose of their advertising operations. This has no relation to your needs as a customer. However due to these decisions, their product has become less secure for you to use and that loss of security is a colossal risk to the manipulation and loss of personal information.

4. Privacy Is Valuable

Remember that, above all, your privacy is valuable. These companies would not invest billions of dollars trying to take it away from you if this was not the case. It has an intrinsic personal value – but also a commercial value. Consider whether paying a small annual fee for ad free email services is better than giving away the true value of your security for free.

Your personal emails should be secure, ads are an invasion of your privacy. Paid email service providers like us are 100% private and secure. We do not allow the scanning of your personal information by third parties to sell to generate income. To secure your privacy and avail of ad-free email, sign up for a Free Trial here.