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iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

developer.apple.com

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Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#21

Post by jofzar »

nate wrote: post #13
postalcoder wrote: post #8

I've noticed a chilling new trend of apple listening to the community.

Anyone have a theory why this even made it to this point? the switch was such obviously a bad idea. just corporate weirdness that no one there bothered to raise their hand and be like "uh, are we really doing this?" or was there a story here that anyone knows about?

It's email reputation, it the always the answer with this kind of stuff.

My guess is that the bounce rate got too high and bot farms were using iCloud addresses like this.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#22

Post by Marsymars »

jofzar wrote: post #21
nate wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone have a theory why this even made it to this point? the switch was such obviously a bad idea. just corporate weirdness that no one there bothered to raise their hand and be like "uh, are we really doing this?" or was there a story here that anyone knows about?

It's email reputation, it the always the answer with this kind of stuff. My guess is that the bounce rate got too high and bot farms were using iCloud addresses like this.

The bounce rate of what, exactly?

Because the bounce rate of Hide My Email addresses being deliverable is going to rise over time, by design.

Whenever I start getting spam at an address that's been leaked, I deactivate it. I've done the same with my oldest gmail account, but the work required there is notably higher.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#23

Post by MBCook »

Marsymars wrote: post #22
jofzar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's email reputation, it the always the answer with this kind of stuff. My guess is that the bounce rate got too high and bot farms were using iCloud addresses like this.

The bounce rate of what, exactly? Because the bounce rate of Hide My Email addresses being deliverable is going to rise over time, by design. Whenever I start getting spam at an address that's been leaked, I deactivate it. I've done the same with my oldest gmail account, but the work required there is notably higher.

If they were moved to plain old icloud.com, I could absolutely see a bunch of companies starting to filter out all icloud.com email addresses to avoid private relay. Either just because they’re jerks or from bounce issues.

Keeping it on a subdomain fixes that problem, to some degree. If the user is named ffjvhtu57325cjdjvg501a2@icloud.com no one is going to think that’s a real address. It’s very obviously a private one. So it’s not like they were “camouflaged.“

It’s a little odd they’re switching the subdomain though.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#24

Post by Quothling »

NotThatFast wrote: post #19

One of the best things about it. Also being able to add several emails per custom domain for free. Whole thing is 99c a month. Makes Gmail seem like a joke in comparison. Until you get an email from an iCloud address on Gmail and see it go right to spam haha. Suddenly Gmail is cheap again

Maybe it's because I live in a country where e-mai isn't really used that much for personal communication, but wouldn't this mainly be a gmail issue? If mails I wanted ended up in the spam folder I'd not use gmail. I mean, I pay for protonmail, so I wouldn't use gmail to begin with, but if mails I wanted ended up in my protonmail spamfolder and I couldn't do anything about it, then I'd switch away from protonmail.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#25

Post by floam »

culi wrote: post #10
floam wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, to fully fix a certain class of bug on their infra.

Do you know any more about it or have a link where I can read more?

I’ll try to add more later, but it is believed that multiple times, a bug in some random API has allowed for the “hidden” Apple account to be revealed because they resolve hide my emails to the original internally. Using a separate namespace would be the universal fix.

A mitigation for the cause of https://www.404media.co/apple-hide-my-email-vulnerability-re...

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#26

Post by NotThatFast »

Quothling wrote: post #24
NotThatFast wrote: post #19

One of the best things about it. Also being able to add several emails per custom domain for free. Whole thing is 99c a month. Makes Gmail seem like a joke in comparison. Until you get an email from an iCloud address on Gmail and see it go right to spam haha. Suddenly Gmail is cheap again

Maybe it's because I live in a country where e-mai isn't really used that much for personal communication, but wouldn't this mainly be a gmail issue? If mails I wanted ended up in the spam folder I'd not use gmail. I mean, I pay for protonmail, so I wouldn't use gmail to begin with, but if mails I wanted ended up in my protonmail spamfolder and I couldn't do anything about it, then I'd switch away from protonmail.

You are 100% correct and yet the masses still prefer it.

World’s a twisted place!

I would guess the average Gmail user doesn’t know that it reports virtually all iCloud as Spam - believing instead that it’s genuinely being filtered by quality engineering at Google.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#27

Post by pests »

super256 wrote: post #20
nate wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone have a theory why this even made it to this point? the switch was such obviously a bad idea. just corporate weirdness that no one there bothered to raise their hand and be like "uh, are we really doing this?" or was there a story here that anyone knows about?

Maybe hidemyemail allows easily creating many accounts on a site. And some big site didn't like it. The "Sign-up via Apple" button and creating an iCloud email yourself have a slightly higher barrier than creating a new throwaway hidemyemail email (1 API call w/o captcha/phone verification or whatever). We might find out later this year if some site starts blocking @icloud.com but keeps allowing @private.icloud.com.

It does, and I know a friend of a friend who uses them for Walmart accounts to bot pokemon drops. Those and office aliases.

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#28

Post by cush »

postalcoder wrote: post #8

I've noticed a chilling new trend of apple listening to the community.

Hmm it’s almost as if people are paying good money for iCloud+ or something. They aren’t google and shouldn’t be retiring their services as if they’re giving them away for free

Re: iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com

#29

Post by Marsymars »

MBCook wrote: post #23
Marsymars wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bounce rate of what, exactly? Because the bounce rate of Hide My Email addresses being deliverable is going to rise over time, by design. Whenever I start getting spam at an address that's been leaked, I deactivate it. I've done the same with my oldest gmail account, but the work required there is notably higher.

If they were moved to plain old icloud.com, I could absolutely see a bunch of companies starting to filter out all icloud.com email addresses to avoid private relay. Either just because they’re jerks or from bounce issues. Keeping it on a subdomain fixes that problem, to some degree. If the user is named ffjvhtu57325cjdjvg501a2@icloud.com no one is going to think that’s a real address. It’s very obviously a private o…

Right, but I'm asking "what bounce issues?"

Like for my usage there are no bounce issues with the ~400 legitimate providers that I have Hide My Email addresses from. The only ones with bounce issues are the spammers who've acquired leaked addresses that I've deactivated.

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