private relay enabled and retailer addressed me by name !

Question

Level 1

17 points

private relay enabled and retailer addressed me by name !

Hello I have Private Relay enabled om Mac and iPhone 13Pro. I browsed a store overseas early one morning and later that day I received an email which was hidden by the way and the writer said

Hi MeNMarc did you see anything you liked ?

I was stunned I thought private relay and hide my email would have hidden my personal details.

Can anyone shed some light on this please ?

Appreciated.

iOS 15.3.1 pro 13

iMac 2017 macOS Monterey 12.2.1

iPhone 13 Pro

Posted on Mar 11, 2022 11:25 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MeNMarc Author

Level 1

17 points

Mar 12, 2022 3:40 AM in response to MeNMarc

I failed to mention I had a look at the hide my email for this online retailer and when I created the account I shared my name and cryptic email address. So that probably explains it.

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Answer 2

MeNMarc Author

Level 1

17 points

Mar 12, 2022 12:39 PM in response to hcsitas

I'm located in Australia, and the website concerned is - Casetify. I do recall in May 2021 when I created my account it was my name and icloud.com email used for registration. I just recently changed my email to a ' hide my email creation by Apple ' so

Casetify would have all my personal data in the creation of my account and it should now be of no surprise to me regardless of the new private email and P Relay operating that they addressed me by my christian name when I browsed their site.

Might be a different case if I created an account with P R enabled and a ' hide my email - substitute' offered for registration.

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Answer 3

hcsitas

Level 6

13,964 points

Mar 12, 2022 3:44 AM in response to MeNMarc

It’s not fool-proof, not available everywhere and requires ISPs and intermediate networks to make updates to fully support. That’s why it’s in beta. Furthermore, having an account on a website allows it to match your ID with previous browsing patterns already recorded.

What country are you in and where is the website (link would help)?

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Answer 4

hcsitas

Level 6

13,964 points

Mar 12, 2022 1:08 AM in response to MeNMarc

Did you browse with Safari? How long has it been since your cleared Safari history?

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Answer 5

hcsitas

Level 6

13,964 points

Mar 12, 2022 9:34 AM in response to lkrupp

True, it’s designed more to counter surreptitious data collection than make life difficult for hackers.

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Answer 6

hcsitas

Level 6

13,964 points

Mar 12, 2022 12:48 PM in response to MeNMarc

Makes sense, shrug it off, no harm done!

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Answer 7

MeNMarc Author

Level 1

17 points

Mar 12, 2022 3:34 AM in response to hcsitas

Hello, yes I did browse with Safari and I clear history and force quit Safari and then launch again quite frequently.

I am quite shocked that this online retailer knew me by Christian name, albeit I do have an account with them but with Apples PRelay and hide my email enabled ! keen to know how they could associate me with a scrambled so to speak IP etc.

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Answer 8

hcsitas

Level 6

13,964 points

Mar 12, 2022 3:47 AM in response to MeNMarc

That makes sense! I agree.

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Answer 9

lkrupp

Level 7

22,147 points

Mar 12, 2022 9:06 AM in response to hcsitas

As far as Private Really and VPNs go there is no such thing as anonymity on the internet. For every advance in privacy there’s hacker figuring out how to get around it. Just my opinion.

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