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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?

#91

Post by speakspokespok »

landgenoot wrote: post #59
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversations caused by the odd looking email address can often get very nasty. This is why I also like how iCloud does with their hide my mail feature; there’s nothing suspicious about the email you give out.

It only has to be unique. It's easy to find out who you gave it to by looking at the very first email. ROT13 or the date in base36 (to keep it short) might help when you need to spell your email address over the phone. Today is oaf@example.com.

Unix epoch `date +%s` still only requires 6 characters. I really like your idea.

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

#92

Post by maeil »

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.

I've always knew at least some companies would do that so I just use slight variations on their names. Never had an issue.

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

#93

Post by maeil »

nzach wrote: post #73

I've seen quite a few people here reccomending the use of . and + from gmail, but I don't think its a good idea at all. Most people who work in the 'email marketing' space know about this feature. So it's common to see people recommending clients to 'clear' their email list before sending unsolicited emails. And some services even offer this as a feature in the platform. And that also goes for custom domains hosted o…

> And that also goes for custom domains hosted on gmail. You only need a MX query to learn who is responsible for mail handling in a specific domain

Curious why this matters? Let's say you know abc@foo.com is hosted on gmail, so what?

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

#94

Post by taftster »

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…

Note that Gmail also supports dots as well (similar to your postfix solution).

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

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

#95

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

taftster wrote: post #94
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…

Note that Gmail also supports dots as well (similar to your postfix solution). https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

Not quite, it's not a separator, you can't add arbitrary content after the dot. Dots are just ignored in Gmail, so you need to keep a map of dot placement and quantity to service, vastly less convenient.

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

#96

Post by sinuhe69 »

My strategy is to use a few alias for sources with spam risk like forum, sign up on “free” offers etc., some for newsletters. When I’m suspicious but not sure, I quickly add the +. Only for very few official transactions, I would use my real addresses. In general, Gmail deals very well with spammers. For the rest, when an alias is spoiled, I simply discard it and create a new one.

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

#97

Post by jeeva »

sunaookami wrote: post #67
rootusrootus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"...

Also frustrating when a company adds it after you register, e.g. Spotify allowed me to use spotify@ at one point, now I can't register anything with that word in .

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

#98

Post by nzach »

maeil wrote: post #93
nzach wrote: post #73

I've seen quite a few people here reccomending the use of . and + from gmail, but I don't think its a good idea at all. Most people who work in the 'email marketing' space know about this feature. So it's common to see people recommending clients to 'clear' their email list before sending unsolicited emails. And some services even offer this as a feature in the platform. And that also goes for custom domains hosted o…

> And that also goes for custom domains hosted on gmail. You only need a MX query to learn who is responsible for mail handling in a specific domain Curious why this matters? Let's say you know abc@foo.com is hosted on gmail, so what?

In this case is safe to assume abc@foo.com, a.b.c@foo.com and abc+def@foo.com are all the same inbox. So you can just use the canonical form (abc@foo.com) to hide where you got this email address from.

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

#99

Post by bityard »

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.

No, most companies that get the special email treatment don't accept email from customers anyway.

If I did it, I would have to set it manually. I don't know of an email client that supports setting the From header to the address in the To header of the relied-to message, but it feels like something that would be fairly easy to do as a Thunderbird plugin or whatever.

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

#100

Post by taftster »

isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #95
taftster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Gmail also supports dots as well (similar to your postfix solution). https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

Not quite, it's not a separator, you can't add arbitrary content after the dot. Dots are just ignored in Gmail, so you need to keep a map of dot placement and quantity to service, vastly less convenient.

Yes, you're right. The dots thing isn't as powerful as the + separator. But it is useful for sites that have a poor understanding (or regex) associated to their address validator. In context of the parent comment, that's the point, that the dots aren't restricted as the plus separator can be.
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