Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Check If Email Exists

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 260 posts

Re: Check If Email Exists

#241

Post by smileysteve »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #96
smileysteve wrote: post #4

The SMTP way of checking if an email exists is on the wrong side of CANSPAM, beginning the sending process to check an address is specifically addressed. And this assumes you didn't systematically "guess" the address.

Interesting. So if they are doing this are they violating CANSPAM? EDIT: Looks like they are indeed doing the SMTP method: https://github.com/reacherhq/check-if-email-exists/blob/a052... I also found a similar, much bigger service here that appears to have been around for a while: https://emailverification.whoisxmlapi.com/api

It speaks volumes about the marketing industry and how readily ethics and compliance are accepted even by companies that theoretically face consequences (though CanSpam seems to be lacking in enforcement here).

There are products that definitely make it past the seed round and sometimes even as public companies before enforcement notice that their entire product runs afoul the law.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#242

Post by benlivengood »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #123
benlivengood wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people want to receive marketing emails. The exact same emails are spam to the rest of us. If you default opt-in users and don't make blanket unsubscription from all marketing emails easy (and make the clear distinction [both internally and externally] between emails regarding the existing functionality of products/services that we've already paid for and emails to ask for more revenue from us, which includes co…

> If you default opt-in users and ... then you're a spammer, simple as that. There is no "and". If you default opt-in users, you're a spammer. > Spammers aren't necessarily evil What?

There's some things right on the edge, like Netflix as an example. They're never trying to sell me anything; they've got my $N/month. The emails (that I don't read until now to sample them) are suggestions of shows I might like. User retention mail and promoting the shows they own the rights to are spam, but not all of it is.

My credit union sends infrequent warnings about recent phishing and scam techniques. I never opted in to those emails but they're not useless for everyone and possibly do net good.

I think a good heuristic is to look at the value provided in emails; if the recipient stands to benefit significantly more than the sender (on average) then it's not spam. Sure, my credit union has to deal with less hassle reversing charges or resetting passwords but it's quite a lot more hassle to be a victim of phishing or other scams.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#243

Post by jefftk »

pessimizer wrote: post #232
saagarjha wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, what? "Open source" doesn't mean "MIT" any more than "vehicle" means "truck"…

I don't even think the OSI classifies AGPL as an Open Source license, does it. Open Source is Free Software, but that's because it can be relicensed to anything as long as its attribution requirements are held to. Free Software licenses are restrictive (to preserve the access of the user to the software they use.)

The OSI does count AGPL as Open Source: https://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0

"it can be relicensed to anything as long as its attribution requirements are held to" is not a requirement of Open Source: https://opensource.org/osd

Re: Check If Email Exists

#244

Post by iancmceachern »

Cyberdog wrote: post #8

Could someone spell out a use case for this? One that comes to mind would be validating that a mailing list doesn't have any outdated email addresses in it, but couldn't that be determined by just checking for a bounce when a message is sent to it? I tried to sign up for SiriusXM the other day, and though I could create an account with my .pro email address, I couldn't actually sign up for service with that same addr…

Marketing?

Re: Check If Email Exists

#245

Post by kortilla »

profmonocle wrote: post #105
Cyberdog wrote: post #8

Could someone spell out a use case for this? One that comes to mind would be validating that a mailing list doesn't have any outdated email addresses in it, but couldn't that be determined by just checking for a bounce when a message is sent to it? I tried to sign up for SiriusXM the other day, and though I could create an account with my .pro email address, I couldn't actually sign up for service with that same addr…

A non-marketing example: We were onboarding a large new client to our SAAS product. This process involved creating accounts for all of their employees (tens of thousands) and sending emails with an activation link. (Where they'd be able to set up their password.) Our system sends these emails in batches, and as soon as the first batch went out we got an alert from our monitoring system that our bounce rate was surgin…

This is a reason you need an escape hatch from SES.

In the past when I worked on a system that needed to notify via email we always had a way to change delivery process for certain emails, domains, etc for exactly this reason. This is one of those cases where we would “deliver directly” (i.e. send directly to their mail provider).

Re: Check If Email Exists

#246

Post by bee_rider »

jffry wrote: post #88
bee_rider wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a weird metric -- sure, inclusion in HIBP increases the chance that it is a real email, but it also drastically increases the chance that the person who's using the email address isn't the original owner. Signed, the twitch account that "I" created.

That would only be a problem if you didn't ultimately require email verification. At least to me, this seems like a tool to decide if you should send email verification or block the signup attempt, but I can see how some people might choose to use the information from this tool to allow verification-free account signup

It seems like lots of places will let you start using the service without actually waiting for a response to the verification email. If they would use "in HIBP" as a flag to indicate that they have to actually wait for the user to click the verification link, that would be pretty cool.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#247

Post by Pick-A-Hill2019 »

atum47 wrote: post #87

I use disposable emails all the time, since nowadays you can't get the "free" wi-fi from business without a freaking registration.

I use the name of the company that offers the 'free' wi-fi - eg nothanks@mcdonalds.com or chairman@walmart.com etc. That way they get the bounce back on their own mail servers and they also rarely refuse to accept it as a valid address for some reason :)

(note I'm just using mcD & walmart as place-holder company names, have no idea if they operate their public wi-fi that way)

Re: Check If Email Exists

#248

Post by geoduck14 »

profmonocle wrote: post #105
Cyberdog wrote: post #8

Could someone spell out a use case for this? One that comes to mind would be validating that a mailing list doesn't have any outdated email addresses in it, but couldn't that be determined by just checking for a bounce when a message is sent to it? I tried to sign up for SiriusXM the other day, and though I could create an account with my .pro email address, I couldn't actually sign up for service with that same addr…

A non-marketing example: We were onboarding a large new client to our SAAS product. This process involved creating accounts for all of their employees (tens of thousands) and sending emails with an activation link. (Where they'd be able to set up their password.) Our system sends these emails in batches, and as soon as the first batch went out we got an alert from our monitoring system that our bounce rate was surgin…

Ok, so first pass gives me a TERRIBLE idea, that would "get the job done". I'm sure you thought of this and dismissed it:

Keep your "overall bounce rate" low, by ALSO sending out extra emails to confirmed email addresses. Like, for every "confirmation" email, also send a "thanks for joining us" email to someone that already confirmed their email.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#249

Post by ganafagol »

golergka wrote: post #192
ganafagol wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is clearly trying to solve a non-technical problem with technical means. The root problem is that AWS cancels you with too high bounce rate. The obvious solution is to talk to some AWS representative to at least temporarily not cancel you after explaining the situation. If AWS does not let you talk to them, then that's where the problem lies, not in some not cleaned up email list. It's terrible to spend a lot of…

> This is clearly trying to solve a non-technical problem with technical means. Isn't that the whole point of what most of us are doing?

Is it? In my dayjob I'm solving technical problems with technical means.

World hunger is not a technical problem. You won't solve it with technical means. If you think you can, you have already lost the fight.

Climate change is not a technical problem. You won't solve it with technical means. If you think you can, you have already lost the fight.

And so on, and so forth. Technical means can help solving certain components needed for the overall solution. These are then technical (sub)problems though. For example, how to store more energy in a battery, or how to grow certain crops with less water. But the overall problems are social in nature. People need to understand that world hunger is a distribution problem. That one is easier to solve with certain (technical) tools available, but that won't be enough. People need to understand that we can't use more natural resources than get replenished. Not a technical problem. If only the tools get better, people will find new ways to be wasteful. Etc etc.

Re: Check If Email Exists

#250

Post by nextaccountic »

neeleshs wrote: post #148
nextaccountic wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you proved the point: when the spammer send spam they think they are doing marketing.

If that was the case, all newsletter senders in the world are spammers too. And all spammers thinking they are marketers is not logically equivalent to all marketing is spamming

Fair enough, if I opt-in it isn't spam.
Post reply on HN