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Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

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Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#281

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

dotBen wrote: post #254
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ownership was never established in the first place.

Sure it was. I create an account, accept the terms and condition and put in your email address, your phone number and your street address. It's still my account, I am the one that accepted the conditions (you would cry foul if you were bound by the conditions you didn't accept).

You have no legal business relationship with a service you've signed up for with no exchange of funds. An EULA is not a contract and they fully indemnify the service provider anyway. All you've done is initiate the creation of some database entries on someone else's property.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#282

Post by lokar »

liquidgecka wrote: post #83
Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

Been there. I posted about this before but I own a 5 character common first and last name @gmail.com address. I get misdirected emails _constantly_. Usually I am polite about it and let people know, but sometimes I make a game of it. I was invited to participate in a drum circle with an offer to pay for my flight to which I replied that I would love to join, but they would also have to pay for drum lessons. I got a m…

Try having a 3 char username (@gmail), it never ends.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#283

Post by martinflack »

liquidgecka wrote: post #138
pwinnski wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I own a 5 character common first and last name @gmail.com address Were you a Google employee? Or did you mean something other than how I read this, that your first and last name combined are 5 characters? Because I believe 5-character usernames are not permitted for gmail addresses. I tried to confirm this and provide a link, but all of support.google.com appears to be non-responsive right now. When it stars workin…

I was an early Gmail SRE so I was able to circumvent the restrictions. It was a bad idea it turns out. For a project I also created "spam@gmail.com" and caused a production outage due to the volume of mail it got forwarded. =) But yes your right, 6 characters is the minimum of "open" gmail accounts. I know of at least a dozen 2 character accounts created by insiders though.

> I was an ... SRE ...... I ... caused a production outage

I have nothing to add, except that you made me smile on a Friday afternoon.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#284

Post by cmckn »

jeffbee wrote: post #220
cmckn wrote: post #147

I signed up years ago with a dot in my username, before I knew this. Folks can reach me sans dot, but my username still has the dot (so, outgoing mail does too). It bothers me a lot! If there is a Googler reading this with the power to remove the dot from my username, please email me (with or without the dot) :)

You misunderstand the article. Your username has no dots, and dots are allowed but ignored when your username is referenced (when logging in, when receiving messages, etc). Nobody can remove the dots from your username because they aren't there in the first place. If you just want a different number of dots in your outbound mails, go to the gmail settings and add a new presentation under "Send mail as ..." and set it…

> add a new presentation under "Send mail as ..." and set it as the default.

That's what I needed -- thanks! The dot still shows in my Gmail profile, and it's not possible to remove the "Send mail as..." address with the dot; which is odd. But yes I'm also able to log in without the dot.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#285

Post by NiggaBytes »

emberfiend wrote: post #235
mrcu5 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Do people just assume they can think of an email address and Google somehow knows and assigns it to them automatically? Like they're signing up for something and put in "santosh83@gmail.com" and think "My name is Santosh and I was born in '83. Google obviously knows this and will send me this email!" ????????

If you ever figure out why people do this or what their thinking is, let me know, but yeah this actually happens. I have a common name but a long and uncommon surname, and I have name.surname@gmail.com. This GP from New Zealand signs up for EVERYTHING under my gmail account. A handful of it spam, but mostly important stuff - notifications for financial transactions make up most of the mails I receive. I have called h…

Is he in Auckland? If it's my GP I'll take it up with him for ya :P

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#286

Post by dmd »

HenryBemis wrote: post #276
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will often see people in France who have a @internet.provider address. The law here is that once you have it, you can keep it when changing providers at no cost, they have to make it available to you. I always found it weird, especially when you have so much choice of provider-free ones (less in France than in other countries but still)

I (and I believe most of us) never use the email address that the ISPs provide, just so we can have our own. Who would ever want to use the HenryBemis4618362783@ISP.com???

The 75% of people who don't know you get a choice.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#287

Post by rhino369 »

mrcu5 wrote: post #185
Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

I'm confused. Do people just assume they can think of an email address and Google somehow knows and assigns it to them automatically? Like they're signing up for something and put in "santosh83@gmail.com" and think "My name is Santosh and I was born in '83. Google obviously knows this and will send me this email!" ????????

Could be something like this:

Had first.last@comcast.net, but migrated to gmail and had to use something else. Then they misremember and hand out first.last@gmail.com.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#288

Post by justin_oaks »

blindm wrote: post #155
har33sh wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also add multiple dots :)

Yes but I imagine most services would spot that as an invalid address? Although it's worth trying something like john...doe@googlemail.com To see if it passes as a valid address. Don't use this for evil, okay?

No, not multiple dots in a row. They still have to be between two non-dot characters.

Two dots in the email instead of one:

    j.o.hndoe@gmail.com
    j.oh.ndoe@gmail.com
    j.ohn.doe@gmail.com
    j.ohnd.oe@gmail.com
    j.ohndo.e@gmail.com
    jo.h.ndoe@gmail.com
    ...
    johnd.o.e@gmail.com

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#289

Post by manmademagic »

SamBam wrote: post #250
Negitivefrags wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a common last name and my email is my first initial and my last name. I get so much misdirected mail that I don’t even try to help these people. I hope John gets to his zoom interview for Deputy Chief of Police later today, because I’m not going to tell him about it.

Happens all the time to me. Some of my fellow [first-initial][last-names] are "smart" people -- a professor and a judge, among others -- and I know that they are putting in their own email wrong. I know this because I'm frequently getting mail from automated systems for something they filled out. I mean, I know there's an xkcd about this, but seriously? How do you mistype your own email address so often? In both case…

Probably due to their workplaces using different schemes

e.g. My personal is [firstname].[lastname] and work is [firstinitial][lastname]

If I didn’t use macros I’m sure I’d eventually mix them up too.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#290

Post by microtherion »

I have an uncommon last name, and picked an uncommon handle, so most of my accounts never get misaddressed e-mails.

But when I was younger and more foolish, I opened a mail account with a flippant phrase as the handle, and apparently somebody used that phrase as a "fake" e-mail address when signing up for the Trump campaign mailing list.

One thing I'm learning from that deluge of e-mails is that, no matter how little I think of GOP voters, I cannot manage to treat them with the utter contempt that the presidential family is treating them with.

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