Apple plans to change a privacy feature that allows paying customers to hide their real email addresses when creating online accounts, potentially making it easier for apps and websites to block anonymous sign-ups.
Apple's Hide My Email is an iCloud+ feature that generates an anonymous email address under the @icloud.com domain and forwards messages to your real email address. The reason these personally generated email addresses work is that the email address is also indistinguishable from a regular Apple user using the @icloud.com domain.
Apple said in a memo to developers on Monday that in the coming weeks it will migrate anonymously generated email addresses to @private.icloud.com, effectively making it easier for apps and websites to recognize that email addresses are private and blocking users from signing up.
In a note to developers, Apple said existing addresses will continue to work and forward email without interruption. The company added that app and email providers will need to update their filtering to ensure that emails to customers using this feature continue to pass through.
Multiple Apple users on Reddit criticized the email domain change, saying it would make it more difficult to use the service.
Apple did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment on the change, nor did it explain why it was making the change.
Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that Apple used Hide My Email to generate anonymized email addresses and hand over the real account information of users who sent threatening emails to FBI Director Kash Patel's girlfriend.
The Trump administration has spent the past year working to unmask anonymous accounts, including those of Trump's critics, using subpoenas to force tech companies to hand over information about their users.
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