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*@gmail.com

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Re: *@gmail.com

#41

Post by vvillena »

xigoi wrote: post #15
dredmorbius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To borrow an example from Internet domain names, consider: experts.exchang@gmail.com expert.sexchange@gmail.com Those addresses would be identical by Gmail's parsing conventions.

And how is that a problem?

It's a problem when using email to register into a different site. Services without email validation will happily accept those two addresses separately, because they don't adhere to Gmail's internal conventions. If the site then sends mail to its registered accounts, then the Gmail address will receive unwanted mail.

Re: *@gmail.com

#43

Post by alduin32 »

jug wrote: post #19
adrianmsmith wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem I've encountered is that usually sites won't allow you to register an account if the email address is already registered at that site. So if I register foo@gmail.com then someone else can't accidentally register foo@gmail.com. But they can register f.o.o@gmail.com just fine. So I mean at my Gmail I have all manner of different Facebook accounts with various misspelling of my email address notifying me of…

LOL this reminds me of a hilarious bug (but only in hindsight!) I had with Discord just three days ago! I tried to login to Discord. It detected a novel browser or location. Sure, this stuff can happen. It wanted to confirm that I was still me and asked me for my e-mail address. I gave it and it said "This e-mail address is already registered". What. Of course it is. It's me. Mine. The one I have registered with you.…

> I promptly deleted the new-account-going-to-same-mail and breathed normally again...

I think at that point I would just have been too scared that this would cascade-delete the old account as well ^^

Re: *@gmail.com

#44

Post by InsomniacL »

Taniwha wrote: post #21
juergbi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Facebook require users to verify the email address with a confirmation email? If so, the only Facebook spam you should be able to get would be such confirmation emails. Or what am I missing?

Oh I wish that were true, I've been receiving email for years for someone who signed up to facebook with my email address. It's a horrible pain, you can't contact facebook without a facebook account, and I can't create one because someone already has one with my email address.

Recover the account if you own the email address?

Re: *@gmail.com

#45

Post by adrianmsmith »

InsomniacL wrote: post #39
adrianmsmith wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem I've encountered is that usually sites won't allow you to register an account if the email address is already registered at that site. So if I register foo@gmail.com then someone else can't accidentally register foo@gmail.com. But they can register f.o.o@gmail.com just fine. So I mean at my Gmail I have all manner of different Facebook accounts with various misspelling of my email address notifying me of…

I don't understand how anyone else can register a facebook account with f.o.o@gmail.com if you own it just as much as you own foo@gmail.com.

The trouble is that Facebook doesn't know every email providers rules and which email addresses the email provider considers equivalent. So for Facebook, foo@gmail.com and f.o.o@gmail.com are two separate addresses (and indeed foo@hotmail.com and f.o.o@hotmail.com probably really are two separate addresses probably controlled by two different people).

You're right that if Facebook required the email to be verified (by sending an email to it) before it could be used with Facebook then two different people wouldn't be able to have two separate Facebook accounts with one of them having an email address controlled by someone else. However, Facebook, in order to "reduce friction" and "reduce time to first value" is happy for you to use an unverified email address and they're happy to send a variety of emails to that address (including lots of emails telling you to finally verify that address).

Re: *@gmail.com

#46

Post by xigoi »

vvillena wrote: post #41
xigoi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is that a problem?

It's a problem when using email to register into a different site. Services without email validation will happily accept those two addresses separately, because they don't adhere to Gmail's internal conventions. If the site then sends mail to its registered accounts, then the Gmail address will receive unwanted mail.

Why would you register with an e-mail address that's not yours in the first place?

Re: *@gmail.com

#47

Post by TheHumanist »

jug wrote: post #19
adrianmsmith wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem I've encountered is that usually sites won't allow you to register an account if the email address is already registered at that site. So if I register foo@gmail.com then someone else can't accidentally register foo@gmail.com. But they can register f.o.o@gmail.com just fine. So I mean at my Gmail I have all manner of different Facebook accounts with various misspelling of my email address notifying me of…

LOL this reminds me of a hilarious bug (but only in hindsight!) I had with Discord just three days ago! I tried to login to Discord. It detected a novel browser or location. Sure, this stuff can happen. It wanted to confirm that I was still me and asked me for my e-mail address. I gave it and it said "This e-mail address is already registered". What. Of course it is. It's me. Mine. The one I have registered with you.…

I hadn't thought of getting possibly locked out of Discord for something so stupid. I have so much going on in there as far as dev comms... That makes me nervous now. Is there a way to export anything just in case?

Re: *@gmail.com

#48

Post by aczerepinski »

gadders wrote: post #36

I love a good reply-all email storm. I remember a Lotus Notes-based on in a bank I worked at the early 90's. I think it only stopped when the Chief of Staff did a reply-all with "The next person to reply-all to these emails is sacked."

I’ll never forget the day that there was pizza available on the 10th floor of corporate headquarters and an email sent to thousands of employees who do not work at headquarters.

Re: *@gmail.com

#49

Post by mabbo »

"If everyone would just stop replying, this would end! Why are you all still hitting reply all?!"

-latest reply all on every reply-all storm.

In my early days at Amazon, around 2012-2015, this would happen frequently enough [0]. I pretty quickly learned the best thing to do was to ignore the conversation and never think about it again rather than try to 'help'.

[0] - too many new products and orgs set up new mailing lists with 5000+ people on it, most of whom had no idea what it was. Growing pains.

Re: *@gmail.com

#50

Post by cnity »

jug wrote: post #19
adrianmsmith wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem I've encountered is that usually sites won't allow you to register an account if the email address is already registered at that site. So if I register foo@gmail.com then someone else can't accidentally register foo@gmail.com. But they can register f.o.o@gmail.com just fine. So I mean at my Gmail I have all manner of different Facebook accounts with various misspelling of my email address notifying me of…

LOL this reminds me of a hilarious bug (but only in hindsight!) I had with Discord just three days ago! I tried to login to Discord. It detected a novel browser or location. Sure, this stuff can happen. It wanted to confirm that I was still me and asked me for my e-mail address. I gave it and it said "This e-mail address is already registered". What. Of course it is. It's me. Mine. The one I have registered with you.…

Spotify once had a very similar issue which actually allowed hijacking of other accounts.

https://engineering.atspotify.com/2013/06/creative-usernames...

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