Apple reverses course on Hide My Email domain change

Apple has reversed a planned decision to migrate its Hide My Email feature to a new domain, confirming that masked addresses will remain on the standard @icloud.com domain. The move follows significant criticism from users who argued that the previously announced shift to @private.icloud.com would undermine the effectiveness of the privacy tool.

Hide My Email is a feature available to paying iCloud+ subscribers that generates unique, disposable email addresses. These addresses allow users to sign up for websites without revealing their real email address, while still routing messages to their regular inboxes. The primary benefit of the service is that the generated addresses are indistinguishable from standard @icloud.com accounts, preventing websites from easily identifying them as disposable.

However, the feature is not without limitations, as Apple can still identify the user behind a masked address when responding to law enforcement requests. Earlier this year, the company announced it would move users to the @private.icloud.com domain. Users on social media and Reddit criticised the change, arguing that the distinct domain would make it easier for websites to reject the addresses during the sign-up process, thereby defeating the purpose of the service.

Apple confirmed on Monday that Hide My Email addresses “will remain” on @icloud.com, rescinding its earlier statement. The company did not provide an official reason for the reversal. However, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who first reported the about-face, stated that Apple employees had objected to the change internally.

The decision comes in the wake of a privacy bug reported earlier in the year by 404 Media. The bug revealed that emails rejected as spam inadvertently leaked users’ real email addresses. Apple fixed the issue more than a year after it was first made aware of the problem.