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.
Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
161–170 of 549 posts
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#162Reminds 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
RCS is not SMS. RCS does have a fallback to SMS in some rare inter-carrier cases, but it won't fall back if you're stuck on 2G or anything.
SMS also isn't free. Many contracts contain "free" texting, but that's just SMS being packaged into the subscription price.
Carriers charge each other for (excess) SMS exchanges, so SMS simply cannot be entirely free.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#163Any Gmail person can tell me why Gmail is tolerating Gmail phishing emails that use Google's own services (e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/savelinge/ ... ? More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46665414
It follows the same logic as physical junk mail. We accept the fact that we will receive junk mailers in our physical mailbox and just toss them out.
In the Netherlands you put a sticker on your mail box with either of these:
- NO ads, NO magazines/papers
- NO ads, YES magazines/papers
Some municipalities even make it opt-in so you'd need YES/YES to get mail without a name and address on it. (ie. not direct mail)
There are also laws to enable opting out of direct mail (with name and address).
In effect, junk mail is just gone once you slap a sticker on your mailbox. This is not an unsolvable problem if you just regulate things.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah, fair point. They're certainly trying to push it in that direction but so far there are still alternatives. I've seen age verification get a hell of a lot of pushback so that's encouraging.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#165They do all this and meanwhile, in between startups and a few personal accounts, when I try to register a new Gmail account and do the text message verification (the old/current TOTP style) I get "This phone number has been used too many times."
Meanwhile the amount of spam from Gmail I'm getting goes up and up and up.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that these spammers now concentrate their efforts towards e-mail addresses hosted by major providers, like Gmail. The reason is that I have an opposite experience, during the last couple of years I have received much less spam messages than before. I have hosted my own e-mail server for more than 2 decades. Previously, I had to filter large quantities of spam messages, but lately the number of spam messages…
I’m considering self hosted. I’m so tired of the major providers not even trying. And I have no serious control over blocklists.
My personal domain has the MX records pointing at Gmail. It gets far less spam than my Gmail address does.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Could be an A/B test. I’ve had mine for 17 years, it only became an issue 5 years ago.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#168Recently helped a small business set up a Google Workspace account and we hit a wall during registration. Told the owners that if Google is already being difficult during signup, imagine being locked out later with client work on the line. Pulled up a few horror stories about Google lockouts to drive the point home. They ended up with another workspace solution.
Yeah, I can't even register a new Gmail/workspace account at this point. "This phone number has been used too many times."
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding how easy simswap is in 2026, it's dangerously stupid from Google to rely on SMS
I wish it was. I've looked everywhere for several years for anyone offering this service so I can get into my 2004 Google account that they enabled SMS 2FA on one day, without any notice, but it has the wrong phone number. I have the username, password and the recovery email address is set to another I own too, but without the SMS code I'm hosed.
You should just determine which carrier hosts the phone number and then go get a job there as a customer service agent or store employee. You'll get full permissions to change accounts, so you'll be able to make the change, fix your gmail, then change it back.
You probably risk some legal fallout though, so be cautious.
Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message
#170I 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…
I hit both a google QR captcha and traditional captcha today. They're phasing it in.