Never Enter Online Contests or Giveaways Before Doing This

Oh the temptation of a great prize. A trip or a new house or cash? Sign me up. Plus, entering online contests and giveaways is so easy, right?

With just a few clicks, you can be entered to win. And with just a little personal information on the line, you could even increase your odds. But before we get too excited, maybe we should stop to consider the real stakes of those sweepstakes: by entering these contests, you could be compromising your privacy.

While the thrill of winning can be deliciously enticing, too many contests are actually data-grab traps in disguise. The good news is that there’s still a safe way to enter while still protecting your personal information.

Here are a few quick tips to safeguard your precious privacy when entering online contests to win that awesome prize.

Use a Secondary Email Address for Online Contests

Your email is precious currency in the world of data collection and is one of the most sought after pieces of info when you enter an online contest. Have you noticed that shortly after you’re asked to provide an email address to enter an online contest you’re suddenly bombarded with marketing emails, newsletters, and sometimes even spam?

To protect order in your personal inbox, always use a secondary email address that you reserve exclusively for entering contests.

Pro Tip: Set up email forwarding from your secondary email directly to your main inbox. That way if a contest email is legit (like a winning notification), you won’t miss it.

Use a Secondary Phone Number

Just as important to your online privacy is your phone number.

Almost every online contest entry form asks for your phone number. Using your personal number for the chance to win a prize (however awesome it might be) can open you up to all sorts of privacy risks, including unwanted texts, telemarketing calls, spam, and even nuisance robocalls. 

With Hushed you can easily get a secondary phone number that can be used just for entering contests. Think of it as your temporary contest-only line and deactivate it when you’re done playing the odds without worrying about your personal phone blowing up with spam or telemarketing calls while you cross your fingers to win that grand prize.

Avoid Using Single Sign-On (SSO)

It’s incredibly tempting to skip the hassle of creating a new account or filling out all your detail to enter an online contest and opt instead for the one-click option of using a Single Sign-On (SSO).

You’ve likely seen prompts such as “Sign in with Facebook” or “Sign in with Google” when visiting other unrelated websites, but here’s the catch: when you use an SSO to enter an online contest, you’re granting the contest site access to any and all personal information you might have stored in your social media or Google accounts, including your contacts, email, phone number, and more.

Instead of using an SSO, manually fill in any of the required information to enter the online contests using your secondary email and Hushed temporary phone number to keep track of any of the personal data that you’re sharing.