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

Removing email registration improved retention

solitaired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 180 posts

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#141

Post by c22 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #123
gnopgnip wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would much rather get an ad from someone I shared my email address with than whatever random businesses decided to pay google/facebook/etc the most

I used to think that way too, then changed my mind. I'd rather get random, un-targeted, irrelevant, and even annoying ads from companies that have no idea who I am or that they're even advertising to me. Less creepy that way, also more likely to result in the serendipity of learning new things outside my filter bubble/what the algorithm predicts for me. Sometimes in order to find the real signal, you have to accept t…

I agree. Whenever I turn on ads they're filled with the most recent thing I've bought which I never need cause I just got one.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#143

Post by newscracker »

buzzert wrote: post #130
spsful wrote: post #92

>you can target them on Quora, Reddit etc as well. This is one of the reasons I stopped giving out my primary email address for user signups. I use a service called Blur which allows for unlimited "masked" emails to be created, allowing me to give companies read-only email addresses. In the four years I've had it I have created 378 email addresses. If I'm including the email addresses that I've already deleted, the l…

I registered a domain name that’s basically just a UUID, and pointed it’s MX records to my self-hosted email server (you could also point it to Google Apps or Fastmail). Everything before the UUID domain is just the name of the service, so something like hackernews@e913ff00...xyz. If someone sells out my email address, I can instantly burn it by just adding a sieve rule since they’re all unique. I even know who sold…

Looks like a nice idea, since I’ve pondered about getting a name that’s not really meaningful or connected to my identities.

1. What’s the length of the UUID that you use?

2. Haven’t you encountered forms that have shorter email address length limits?

3. Also, wouldn’t such a domain be seen as a spammer/scammer when machine learning starts taking over signup/registration systems?

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#144

Post by gingerlime »

Silhouette wrote: post #131
Nextgrid wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether Facebook has my e-mail, services providing them with a hashed version of it for advertising purposes still allow Facebook to tell "this hash is associated with these services" even if they never had the original un-hashed email. They can combine it with all the other information they have (stolen from people's contacts which may have the unhashed e-mail along with my name and potentially phone n…

Things get murky in this area (or perhaps not, the lawyers will figure it out in time). If Facebook is only using something like a hash of an email address in order to target ads at specific Facebook users at the request of one of their advertisers, they are probably only acting as a data processor for a very specific purpose that might be acceptable for both Facebook themselves and the advertiser under the GDPR rule…

Always enjoy reading your insightful comments Silhouette!

I think Facebook hashes any plain text you give it client side to (try) to buffer their defenses... but I’m not sure. It’s a theater.

I wrote a blog post about this data sharing with Facebook https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/whos-sharing-my-data-and-wh... that digs a little in this direction.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#145

Post by newscracker »

techsupporter wrote: post #27
throwayws wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you avoid getting spam to random addresses using catchall?

I use a subdomain; making your main domain a catch-all will eventually result in a deluge of spam. Instead of [everything]@example.com, I set up [everything]@yo.example.com. Discovering subdomains is much harder and the one time I encountered a form that didn't like a subdomain, I just made a forwarding address on my main domain. Using Fastmail's rules, I have a setup where every message arriving to @yo.example.com g…

> Discovering subdomains is much harder...

Is this because you don’t publish MX records in DNS for the subdomains and the default setting on the main domain is to accept only specific addresses (and reject catch-all addresses)?

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#146

Post by grawprog »

threeseed wrote: post #64

This is not advice any startup should ever listen to. The most successful and lucrative form of marketing, by far, is re-marketing. That is where you take someone who signed up but is not currently a customer and you target Facebook/Google ads specifically at that email address. I've seen conversion rates as high as 30% and it's typically pretty affordable. It's such a critical part of marketing that many companies w…

But, for 90% of websites that force me to use an email, unless it's for something i'm paying for or care a lot about, I use one of several email addresses I set up specifically to sign up for websites and never look at them again.

If I didn't have to give an email, I'd probably still use those services, reddit comes to mind, i'm only signing up because i'm interested in the first place.

Having my email and spamming me...sorry, remarketing to me, makes no difference to my retention because I never see it. Providing a quality service I care to use is why I stay with things.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#147

Post by ohyeshedid »

gnopgnip wrote: post #118
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and this is why users don't want to give it to you.

I would much rather get an ad from someone I shared my email address with than whatever random businesses decided to pay google/facebook/etc the most

What about the people that bought your email from someone you shared your email address with? That's part of the problem, from the consumer standpoint.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#148

Post by _v7gu »

dependenttypes wrote: post #134
buzzert wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I registered a domain name that’s basically just a UUID, and pointed it’s MX records to my self-hosted email server (you could also point it to Google Apps or Fastmail). Everything before the UUID domain is just the name of the service, so something like hackernews@e913ff00...xyz. If someone sells out my email address, I can instantly burn it by just adding a sieve rule since they’re all unique. I even know who sold…

I heard that some services have started rejecting email addresses that contain their name.

For websites that have questionable password policy, I use passwords that curse the company in my native language (if no-one sees it then it's fine, but if someone does then they have deserved it). I bet the same tactic would work if you get creative, ie spotfuckingify@uuid

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#150

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

threeseed wrote: post #70
Nextgrid wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you target Facebook/Google ads specifically at that email address That is scummy as hell and might even get you in trouble when it comes to the GDPR if you're operating in the EU. If I sign up for your web service the last thing I want is Facebook/Google knowing that fact.

This is a core feature of every ad platform I've seen and is absolutely not a violation of the GPDR since users are giving consent when they signup. You've signed up for a web service and never seen ads on other sites for it ? Very strange.

> This is a core feature of every ad platform I've seen and is absolutely not a violation of the GPDR since users are giving consent when they signup.

That's not how it works. Hiding the "consent" in the fine print doesn't count, and at least in Germany, it's clear that you need valid consent and can't weasel out of it by claiming "legitimate interest" etc.

I already had a DPA explain this to one of the companies that decided to give my data to Facebook, and the DPA indicated that they were acting on multiple complaints in that regard.

There's a good chance they'll let you get away with a warning the first time if you haven't gotten in trouble before, but especially if you keep doing it (or if they decide that by now, you certainly should have known), expect quickly escalating fines.

Post reply on HN