Apple is planning to change the Hide My Email privacy feature, which could make it less effective

Apple’s plan to change a privacy feature that lets paying customers hide their real email addresses when creating online accounts could make it easier for apps and websites to block anonymous signups.

Apple’s Hide My Email feature is an iCloud+ feature that creates anonymous email addresses within @icloud.com domain, which then forwards messages to the person’s real email address. The reason privately generated email addresses work is that they are indistinguishable from regular Apple users, whose email addresses are also used @icloud.com specialization.

Apple said in Note to developers on Monday In the coming weeks, the company will move anonymously generated email addresses to @private.icloud.comwhich makes it easier for apps and websites to know that an email address is private and prevents users from registering.

Apple said in a note to developers that existing addresses will continue to work and forward mail without interruption. The company added that app and email providers will have to update their filtering processes to ensure emails continue to be sent to customers who rely on this feature.

Many Apple users on Reddit Criticize the change in email domainSaying that would make using the service more difficult.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch about the change, or explain why the change was made.

Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that Apple handed over the user’s real account information who created an anonymous email address using Hide My Email to send an allegedly threatening email to the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel.

The Trump administration has made efforts over the past year to make this happen Detection of unknown accountsincluding Trump’s critics, have used subpoenas to demand that technology companies hand over information about their users.