I wanted to sell a used bike, and every site that would let me post it wanted my email address on the ad page. Not because the ad needed one - because the reply path ran through it. So the address sat on a public page for anyone, or anything, to collect.

MingList takes the other approach. The posting form asks for a title, a category, a region, a price, a display name, photos and the ad itself. There's no email field and no phone field. What buyers see is the display name you chose, not your name.

The reply path is where the actual work went. Every listing gets its own relay address, and that's what appears on the page. Messages to it are forwarded to your real inbox. When you reply, it goes back out through the relay, so the buyer doesn't see your address either. Closing the listing stops the forwarding.

Sign-in is one tap with Google. I'm not going to dress that up as a feature, and I'm not going to bury it: it's the only way to post. What it doesn't mean is that your address is in the ad or in a scraper's list.

Where it's weak: this launched recently and there are very few listings. It's live in 24 cities across five countries, which sounds bigger than it is. No verification, no in-app chat, no payment handling.

I'd rather hear what's wrong with it now: does the relay leak anything I haven't thought of?

MingList

Free Local Classifieds, Email Never Shown

Free Local Classifieds, Email Never Shown