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Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

discuss.privacyguides.net

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Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#151

Post by AstroBen »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #144
AstroBen wrote: post #106

Register your own domain and use that for your email, and you'll no longer be held hostage by Google. Takes almost no effort and will cost you a few dollars a month.

But what do you actually use as the email host? If you just set up your own mail server, you're almost certainly going to have everything you send go straight to spam. You still need to register with someone like google, or Proton, etc.

Yeah, but you're not beholden to them. There are 100 different hosts you can use if you own your own domain. If a host changes in a way you don't like, just move your domain elsewhere. If you're using Gmail, you're stuck with Google. Being independent of any one host is the important part to me.

Personally I have my own mail server and use smtp2go for sending which handles the deliverability issue. I'm not sure it's worth it going this way but I found it fun and its been 0 maintenance

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#152

Post by okanat »

AstroBen wrote: post #137
lenerdenator wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just me; most people won't. That's the issue.

Why is it an issue? I don't care what other people do with their email.

Democracy is the style of ruling where majority's ignorance dominates over the vulnerable. You will be eventually forced to use internet and forced to use the way your government wants you to use it.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#153

Post by pier25 »

arjie wrote: post #58

I went through it to register just now. No QR code required. Same flow as it has been for years: 1. Personal/Child/Business 2. First/Last 3. Pick email 4. Date of Birth 5. Backup email / Skip 6. Password 7. Enter phone number 8. Confirm with 2FA code 9. Done. I just made the email testregistrationflow@gmail.com and have since forgotten the password. So that’s one burned. But feel free to try testregistrationflow1@gma…

Maybe it depends on the country?

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#154

Post by gambiting »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #118
torben-friis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is getting horrible lately. I get all sorts of new techniques including: - using legitimate sites to bypass filters, like sending you a bill through a legitimate bill-creation site - pretending to be a tracking service for something you supposedly ordered, then over the course of days pretending the package got lost on the way and offering a discount code for the 'purchased' amount, expecting you to use it on th…

Gmail spam filtering is so bad that I believe it has to be intentional. I think they see email as a long term ad revenue opportunity and want to desensitize people to the spam.

I wonder how come I have such a diametrically different experience. I don't remember the last time any spam email got through the automatic filter into my inbox, and I had a gmail account for 20 years now.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#155

Post by jeroenhd »

DANmode wrote: post #133
croes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To enter their phone number because you sent an SMS to them. So if there are any costs for sending this SMS it’s on you.

There weren’t any infrastructure costs to sending the first SMS ever, there shouldn’t be any remaining for the consumer today unless you’re a real unfortunate soul.

Exchanging SMS messages with any sort of reliability (like not losing your messages when you go through a tunnel) requires running an SMSC. That costs money.

Furthermore, carriers still charge each other for exchanging SMS traffic, though many of them just charge the difference rather than sending each other bills.

This approach is quite costly if you're out of the country, though. Sending an SMS is hit and miss when roaming in foreign enough networks, and each SMS can cost you a significant amount for exchanging 10 characters. Even receiving SMS messages far away from home can cost you money, which is a pain if you have a relative that could never get used to modern messaging services.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#156

Post by sumanep »

Daedren wrote: post #145

Reminds me of Telegram that forces you to pay premium to login to a new device depending on the country. Login, not registration. This is all due to the cost of SMSes of course. You can bypass this if you have a passkey, but phone and password isn't enough. No idea why they opted to do that, it's not like passkeys are indicative of any device binding.

sms are free, at least rcs

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#157

Post by xp84 »

lenerdenator wrote: post #109
AstroBen wrote: post #106

Register your own domain and use that for your email, and you'll no longer be held hostage by Google. Takes almost no effort and will cost you a few dollars a month.

> and will cost you a few dollars a month Dead on arrival.

I know this ^ seems unreasonable, but I know you’re right.

Mostly because of conditioning: it’s been 25 years now that free webmail is the way Gen-X, Y, Z, and future generations do email. Boomers and the older Gen-Xers may still be hanging onto an ISP address, if they haven’t moved too much since the 1990s.

After all that, plus with their email addresses being the opposite of portable, there is no limit to how much crap people will take, when the alternative is learning a little bit about domain registration and DNS, and paying $60 a year for Fastmail or whatever. Email, they believe, is supposed to be free as in beer.

Sad but true. Also, confession: I used to use first name @ full name . com and got tired of the confused looks and typos when I had to give it out, so now I use a six-character Gmail with numbers so that it’s just like people expect.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#158

Post by Ajakks »

traviswingo wrote: post #48
torben-friis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is getting horrible lately. I get all sorts of new techniques including: - using legitimate sites to bypass filters, like sending you a bill through a legitimate bill-creation site - pretending to be a tracking service for something you supposedly ordered, then over the course of days pretending the package got lost on the way and offering a discount code for the 'purchased' amount, expecting you to use it on th…

I can’t prove it, but it feels like the world recently decided that spamming/scamming is acceptable, so the number of spammers/scammers has increased dramatically. The number of spam calls, texts, emails, iCloud account unlock requests, etc I’ve received in the last year is insane.

Oh no - you can definitely 100% prove it, this is the direct consequence, the exact intended consequences, of Trump gutting consumer protections - across the board, not only online but with food and laws about not dumping chemicals in rivers.

The man is the absolute worse person - unless your a rich guy, who wants to make more money by screwing over people who mostly don't even know it.

Anyone who reads this, I dare you to find out why that thing in your life you hate so much, sucks so bad - nothing is ever by accident or unintentional.

The United States, and its People, will be discovering/realizing different ways we have been absolutely f-d by that grifter for likely the rest of my millenial life, thankfully (silver lining!!) US life expectancy has dropped substantially for the 150 million Americans in the bottom 50% of income - rich people in America have to deal with this bs for almost 8 more years than we do

Oh yeah, if you want a faster out even yet - just make 30k or less per year, your life caps at 71 then.

I joke but I hate so much that people will read this and then promptly go back to sustaining this system at their job.

We work our lives away so the rich dont have to and they get to live 14 more years on average than poor people.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#159

Post by jeroenhd »

TimByte wrote: post #131

This feels like one of those "security" changes that also happens to conveniently eliminate a lot of privacy-preserving workflows

There are services online dedicated to temporary account activation phone numbers to bypass Google's requirements, but most of them can only receive messages. Requiring the user to send an SMS seems like an excellent method to get rid of those services so that bots can no longer use them.

I don't really see the point of a privacy-preserving workflow when it comes to a Google account. It's not like they need to know your phone number to track you.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#160

Post by xp84 »

reconnecting wrote: post #12

Gmail has been evil both for client privacy as they use email scanning for marketing purposes, and for 'spam' filters that reject legitimate emails. The fact that they're introducing QR/SMS/MMS/whatever they want is actually an interesting signal, because it will harm the customer experience, which might result in the growth of responsible paid email services.

This seems pretty optimistic. If you ask 30 random people on the street if they’d rather give Google their phone number and jump through whatever dumb SMS hoops, or switch to a new email address and pay a few bucks a month for it for the rest of their lives, I’m thinking Google is getting all 30 phone numbers. Sadly.
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