Which email address should you give when a news site says "Register to keep reading"?

You click on a news story, read the first two paragraphs, and then the text slowly fades out behind a box that says "Register for free to keep reading." Below it there's an email field, maybe a "Continue with Google" button. You only wanted to know how the story ends, and now you're being asked to open an account.

How you handle this screen depends on what kind of wall you're looking at. They all look alike, but the business models behind them differ, and so does the right choice of email address.

Types of registration wall

With a free registration wall, the site isn't after your money. It wants to know who you are. A registered reader can be offered to advertisers as part of a "known audience" and pulled back to the site with email marketing. That's a legitimate business model, since journalism has to be paid for somehow. The question from your side is whether this site is worth giving your permanent address to.

The newsletter boxes that come with registration

The part of a free registration form that deserves the most attention is the small consent lines just below the email field. Common examples:

• "Send me the daily news briefing"
• "Keep me informed about offers and promotions"
• "I agree to my details being shared with partners"

These can come pre-ticked. Hit "Register" quickly and from the next morning you'll be getting one, maybe several, newsletters a day. Under the GDPR and the usual email marketing consent rules, sites generally need your consent before sending you marketing, and you can withdraw it at any time. Still, the easiest thing is not to tick the box in the first place.

Then there are "Continue with Google" and similar social login buttons. They save you from creating a password, but they pass your main email address to the site, often along with your name and profile details. Just to read one article, that's more than you need to share.

Using a temporary email on a free registration wall

If you only want to read one or two articles, a free registration wall is one of the most sensible places to use a temporary email. The flow usually goes like this:

1. Open the Geçici Mail page in a separate tab and copy the address you're given.
2. Paste it into the news site's registration form and set a password if asked. Leave the newsletter boxes empty.
3. If the site asks for verification, the confirmation email lands in the temporary inbox within a few seconds. Click the link.
4. Read the article.

Some sites don't even ask for verification; typing the address is enough. Others recognise temporary email providers and reject the sign-up. That's the site's choice, and we explain why it happens in the article on how sites detect temporary email.

One limit to keep in mind

An account opened with a temporary address is, in practice, a disposable account. If you forget your password, the reset email goes to that address. The recovery key can take you back to the same address, but don't treat it as the basis of an account you'll keep logging into for years. If it's a publication you read several times a week and follow closely, a permanent secondary address is a better choice.

With metered walls, check the monthly limit first

Sites that show messages like "You've read 4 of your 5 free articles this month" push you first towards free registration, then towards a subscription. On these sites, a free account usually raises the limit a little but doesn't remove it.

Let's be straight about this. Opening account after account with new temporary addresses to get around that limit most likely breaks the site's terms of use, and it directly erodes the income of a publication that produces news through real work. The point of a temporary email is to protect your privacy, not to get a publication's paid content for free. We made the same distinction in the article on what not to use a temporary email for. If you read a publication all the time, it's probably worth supporting.

Why use your real address for a paid subscription?

Once you decide to pay for a news site or magazine, the picture changes completely. Now you should use a permanent address that you check regularly. The reasons:

• Invoices and payment notifications. The record of what's charged to your card and the renewal reminders come to this address.
• Cancellation and refunds. When you want to cancel, you need to be able to log in and, if necessary, write to customer support.
• Password resets. Losing access to an account you're paying for is the last thing you want.
• Auto-renewal warnings. Not missing the email that tells you a trial is about to turn into a paid period can save you from a payment you didn't want.

Even with a paid subscription, you're free to leave the marketing boxes unticked. Subscribing doesn't mean agreeing to five different newsletters a day. Setting up a filter in Gmail is also a good way to keep newsletters out of your main inbox.

If you've already registered with your main address

Over the years you may have registered on plenty of news sites with your main address. You don't have to go back to each one to tidy things up; the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletters is usually enough. If you want to close an account you never use, look for a "delete account" option in the account settings. If you can't find one, the GDPR gives you the right to ask the organisation holding your data to erase it. How to make that request is usually explained in the site's privacy notice.

Isn't a private window enough?

Some readers use a private window to get past the wall. On metered walls this sometimes works, because the counter is stored in cookies. But that isn't a route publishers approve of either, and many sites now detect private browsing and ask you to register. We explain what a private window actually hides and what it doesn't in this article.

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