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Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#61

Post by TZubiri »

buildsjets wrote: post #46

I've used spamgourmet.com for many years (Literally decades, my first entry was 2003-08-07) to create disposable email address. You just make up the address "tempsite.4.username@spamgourmet.com" to create an email address for tempsite that expires after 4 uses. You can always remove this limit later. My message stats: You have 245 spamgourmet address(es). 827 emails forwarded, 28,605 eaten. The #1 worst offender for…

what do you mean yahoo. As in you made a yahoo account with your domain?

Because yahoo also hosted @yahoo addresses, it would have been pretty noticeable if they sold the addresses of their own users.

"EDIT:which probably correlates to the overall death of email, which is for old people, so I am told."

Still alive and kicking as the de facto passport of the internet.

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#64

Post by helmsb »

I do, I use Fastmail and create aliases for every service. It's interesting to see how fast companies will "lose" or sell your email address.

I've seen it as fast as 24 hours my unique email address is being used by others even though their privacy policy says that they will never share your info.

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#65

Post by kmoser »

dblohm7 wrote: post #43
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

woah, what do you mean by calling it fraud? Have you actually had companies come after you legally due to an email alias?

I'm not GP, but I've had transitions denied while attempting to purchase something because the retailer's code flagged my email address as suspicious because it contained their name in it.

Haven't had that happen to me, but I did get asked by a clueless support rep from $VERY_BIG_MULTINATIONAL_CORPORATION whether I was also an employee due to their company name appearing in my email address. (Coincidentally I used to consult for that company.) Long story short I set them straight rather than trying to parlay their ignorance to my advantage.

The most shocking thing was that I was calling them regarding an issue in which they required me to prove my identity, and yet the person I spoke with didn't seem to be well versed in security measures.

Also: I use a separate alias for every company (and sometimes individual) I deal with. In the 25 or so years I've been doing this, so far I'm up to over 1,000 aliases.

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#66

Post by Snawoot »

I have addresses like somename-ex-someservice@mydomain.com directed to my email, which I use to register myself in "someservice". This is how I know where email was leaked and needs to be disabled. I use Protonmail basic subscription to attach my domain. Before that I was using rewriting rules in Postfix.

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#67

Post by sunaookami »

rootusrootus wrote: post #40
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

woah, what do you mean by calling it fraud? Have you actually had companies come after you legally due to an email alias?

I have not had anyone accuse me of fraud yet, but I have had email addresses rejected because they too obviously contained the company name in them.

Samsung does this for example! You can't register a Samsung account if your email contains the word "Samsung"...

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#68

Post by AH4oFVbPT4f8 »

bityard wrote: post #53

I self-host my own email server (against The Greater Internet's better judgement, it feels) and one of the neat things I can do with Postfix is set any arbitrary character as a username/junk separator. Gmail has supported this for a long time with the '+' character, but this has some major problems. Many things that accept email addresses don't recognize '+' as a valid email username character and won't let you submi…

Do you ever have issues sending messages using user.acme@example.com as the from address?

Some companies want you to respond from the email address on file when you interact with them.

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#69

Post by grayhatter »

AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote: post #68
bityard wrote: post #53

I self-host my own email server (against The Greater Internet's better judgement, it feels) and one of the neat things I can do with Postfix is set any arbitrary character as a username/junk separator. Gmail has supported this for a long time with the '+' character, but this has some major problems. Many things that accept email addresses don't recognize '+' as a valid email username character and won't let you submi…

Do you ever have issues sending messages using user.acme@example.com as the from address? Some companies want you to respond from the email address on file when you interact with them.

I do something similar except I make up a custom email every time. (No plus addressing at all, everything without a valid destination goes to the default account) It's rare something doesn't like it, most automated systems use the reply to header. Email lists are usually the ones least tolerant.

Re: Ask HN: Do you track how your email address is used?

#70

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

I used to use a catch-all with a custom e-mail for every website I used. I had amazon@mydomain, newegg@mydomain, etc.

I found that despite what people think, your e-mail address isn't being sold. At least, not by any vendors with a remotely decent reputation. I never got spam to any of those e-mail addresses.

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