You cover a lot of ground in pursuit of product and best opportunities, much of it on the Internet. But there are always sites that want you to sign up with your e-mail — “for free” — before you can obtain the information. You know what happens next: You get added to an e-mail distribution list and unwanted messages start popping up in your Inbox two or three times a week.

Worse yet, some of these sites will “share” your information with interested industry parties — which means more junk in your Inbox.

Good news: There’s a mail proxy service that’ll spare you these problems.

Akapost.com is a free service that can make outgoing e-mails untraceable, yet still direct responding e-mails back to your original e-mail address.

By establishing an Internet “alter ego,” you’ll help protect your real e-mail address from landing in unwanted places.

How it works, in a nutshell:

• type in your outgoing e-mail target — then add “akapost.com” to the address
• that message will be captured by akapost; your real e-mail adress will be removed and the pseudonym you’ve selected will be substituted — with “akapost.” as the originating address
• if that recipient wants to respond, they hit “reply” and send the message; akapost snags it and substitutes your real e-mail address for the pseudonym.

Tags: e-mail, procurement, purchasing