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Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

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Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#2
The best thing I did very long ago was to have my own domain, partly for the purpose of having "infinity email addresses." I find it very interesting how this didn't catch on. I wonder if perhaps the Fediverse, etc., might re-spark an interest in something along these lines for more people.

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#3
post #2

The best thing I did very long ago was to have my own domain, partly for the purpose of having "infinity email addresses." I find it very interesting how this didn't catch on. I wonder if perhaps the Fediverse, etc., might re-spark an interest in something along these lines for more people.

How much a year or what’s your bill like for setup and maintenance?

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#4
A Gmail address can have "."s added anywhere in the part before the @ and the resulting emails will still come to your inbox. You can then filter things directly to spam with a simple rule.

Similarly you can add + (eg John+Walmart@gmail.com). Then filter things to specific folders. Better still you can see who is selling your email when you start getting emails to that address. Some places don't permit + symbols in emails though...

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#5
post #2

The best thing I did very long ago was to have my own domain, partly for the purpose of having "infinity email addresses." I find it very interesting how this didn't catch on. I wonder if perhaps the Fediverse, etc., might re-spark an interest in something along these lines for more people.

If you don't mind, what email solution do you use? Self-hosted? Some cloud solution?

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#6

A Gmail address can have "."s added anywhere in the part before the @ and the resulting emails will still come to your inbox. You can then filter things directly to spam with a simple rule. Similarly you can add + (eg John+Walmart@gmail.com). Then filter things to specific folders. Better still you can see who is selling your email when you start getting emails to that address. Some places don't permit + symbols in e…

Both of these are well known features. And you can "normalize" a Gmail email address - basically stripping your defences.

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#7

A Gmail address can have "."s added anywhere in the part before the @ and the resulting emails will still come to your inbox. You can then filter things directly to spam with a simple rule. Similarly you can add + (eg John+Walmart@gmail.com). Then filter things to specific folders. Better still you can see who is selling your email when you start getting emails to that address. Some places don't permit + symbols in e…

With Fastmail, same effect by different means: Email aliases. Web UX is a bit rough, however.

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#8

A Gmail address can have "."s added anywhere in the part before the @ and the resulting emails will still come to your inbox. You can then filter things directly to spam with a simple rule. Similarly you can add + (eg John+Walmart@gmail.com). Then filter things to specific folders. Better still you can see who is selling your email when you start getting emails to that address. Some places don't permit + symbols in e…

Both of these are well known features. And you can "normalize" a Gmail email address - basically stripping your defences.

Yes and no.

First that assumes someone is bothering. Plenty of places don't, as my spam collection shows. It always amazes me how little technical know-how or design goes into high cost solutions.

And second: just reverse the logic: emails to john.doe@gmail.com are whitelisted. All others go to spam. So even if someone is "normalising" it actually works for Mr Doe...

I hope this helps!

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#9
post #2

The best thing I did very long ago was to have my own domain, partly for the purpose of having "infinity email addresses." I find it very interesting how this didn't catch on. I wonder if perhaps the Fediverse, etc., might re-spark an interest in something along these lines for more people.

If you don't mind, what email solution do you use? Self-hosted? Some cloud solution?

Not the commenter, but cloudflare email routing works well w/ a $1/year xyz domain (random 6 -9 digit domains are discounted). It's worth noting that this might not be as private as iCloud or mozilla's solutions, as you share a domain with all other costumers. On the other hand, people have held onto domains for very long amounts of time, and the system is less susceptible to "it wasn't making enough money so you can't access some of your accounts now".

Re: Everyone Wants Your Email Address. Think Twice Before Sharing It

#10
post #2

The best thing I did very long ago was to have my own domain, partly for the purpose of having "infinity email addresses." I find it very interesting how this didn't catch on. I wonder if perhaps the Fediverse, etc., might re-spark an interest in something along these lines for more people.

If you don't mind, what email solution do you use? Self-hosted? Some cloud solution?

Not the OP, but a .com domain costs me about $12/yr and fastmail.com costs me about $50/yr and I get unlimited email addresses as a result (catch-all).
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