Facebook privacy tip: Hide your email address from game makers' prying eyes

To play most Facebook games, you're required to give up your email address and other personal info to have the privilege. It's like a new bartering system for the digital age -- if you're going to use an app (or, in this case, play a game) without spending any money, then you're going to have to pay by giving up a little bit of your privacy instead.

If you're one of the few who is still determined to keep your private info, well, private, you should check out this clever workaround that will keep your email concealed from the companies that make Facebook games.

Here's how it works: When you launch a game and get the permission screen (see above) that asks for access to your personal information, post messages on your Facebook wall and send you email, don't click the blue 'Allow' button right away. Instead, look under the 'Send me email' option, and click on the word 'Change.'

That will launch a drop-down menu that will allow you to choose a temporary forwarding email just for the app. Select the temporary email and then go back and click the 'Allow' button.

By making this one small change, you have ensured that you will still get email from the application in your email, but the company behind the game won't have your actual email address. This is nice in the case that, hypothetically, a company like Zynga decides to give away a list of its customer emails to a direct marketing firm or something of that ilk. Or maybe you're just one of those uber-paranoid digital privacy fanatics and try to keep your personal info as close to the vest as possible.

As an added bonus, if you decide to remove the game from your Facebook profile, the temporary email address will disappear as well. Brilliant!

[Via Lifehacker]