Valley Forge Mailboxes Blog, Valley Forge PA

Benefits Of Online Fax Anonymity

Since the early days of the Internet, there have been applications available that help you hide your IP (Internet Protocol) address and, therefore, surf anonymously. Most such software programs, sometimes deployed as online services, route your traffic in and out through free, public proxy servers. Many law enforcement types, and others given to paranoid fantasies, can only conceive of evil and illegal activities being carried out with such protection. However, the rise of anonymous online fax services, and the many discussions of their use on Web forums, puts the lie to this line of thinking. The fact is, there are plenty of good reasons to maintain anonymity in communications, faxes included.

One immediate benefit of using an anonymous online fax service is to prevent the further spread of one’s fax number, e-mail address and other personal contact information. The more one uses e-mail, the more spam shows up in the inbox. The more one sends faxes, the more junk faxes begin arriving to eat through your plain paper, if you have a newer fax machine, or your costly thermal paper, if you don’t. Plain old economic protectionism, of the personal kind, is a very important motivation among people who are moving to anonymous services of all kinds.

Intro to online faxing
Most online fax services offer great ID protection even when they are not marketing themselves on that benefit. The nature of the service leaves it to the end user of the service to supply her identification, since the faxes pass through several steps that cloak the message source. Some services provide Web-based forms by which the fax is composed and sent, meaning that the fax sender’s identity and IP address are hidden from the receiver. Other services forward e-mails received from the senders and retransmit them to fax numbers that are supplied, often in the “To” address field. Either way, all the receiver gets is a fax from the service provider, carrying the message with as much or little self-identification as the sender cares to provide.

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There are various benefits to being anonymous, in business and personal dealings alike. For business owners looking to change suppliers or get new pricing information, an anonymous contact will ensure replies and quotes that will not be inflated according to any presumptions or biases about the requestor. When doing marketing research, as well, it is important to maintain objectivity, in both directions, so an anonymous fax can be critical in obtaining the unvarnished facts of the matter; whatever matter it happens to be.

Additional benefits of anonymity
For individuals, it can be even more important to maintain Internet anonymity, and the spread of ID theft has led to a proliferation of advice on anonymous surfing, how to mask your IP address and so on. With anonymous online faxing, however, there are absolutely no technological hoops to jump through and no computer-geeky knowledge required. You simply sign up for the service, use the Web form or follow the provided e-mail procedure, and your fax is sent with only the identifying information that you decide to include. There is absolutely no way that the message can be traced back farther than the anonymous sending service.

There are also some very special circumstances for which anonymity serves a somewhat higher purpose and acknowledges a more compassionate calling. Some people, when they make charitable contributions or do other good works, do not wish to draw attention to themselves or take even the slightest credit for their acts. It may not lead to stories like the old Millionaire television show of the 1950s, where people got million-dollar checks from an anonymous benefactor, but there are bound to be any number of smaller, more personal and still uplifting occurrences made possible by anonymity in faxing.
Bottom line benefits

The many and varied benefits of online fax anonymity are available to both individuals and businesses. The cost is extremely low, the technical implementation simple and the use straightforward, so the service is available to everyone, regardless of computer expertise. As you’ve seen, it can be used in many different ways, none of them nefarious, to maintain a separation between the subjects of the messages and the personalities (and identities) of the messengers.
Whether for marketing, price quotes, research questionnaires or charitable donations, you can protect yourself simply and effectively when you pursue these various activities via an anonymous online fax service.

Check user forums, review sites and discussion pages to get ratings on the various services. Although they share many features, the services do have some distinct differences that may affect your decision. The major commonality, of course, is anonymity, and on that score, they all rank well. Depending on your other needs, one or another of them will be just right in every other respect, too.