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Comment by daigoba66 | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t that functionally the same as “ignore dots”?

Meaning they can just strip out the dots when matching email addresses: either on login/signup or mail routing.

It is, but the key point is that this doesn't lead to people sending mail to the wrong address since nobody can sign up to "the wrong address" in the first place. There's one address allowed, aliased to all permutations.

It does lead to people sending mail to the wrong address, from personal experience since Gmail was in beta. I've gotten sensitive emails and account signups with different dots for years.

But the cause of that appears to be user error -- people thinking they own email addresses that are not actually theirs.

> I've gotten sensitive emails and account signups with different dots for years.

Please, please give an example..

Also, read this..

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en#zippy=%...

> if your email is johnsmith@gmail.com, you own all dotted versions of your address

> If anyone tries to create a Gmail account with a dotted version of your username, they'll get an error saying the username is already taken.

> Your account is still private and secure. Emails sent to any dotted version of your address will only go to you.

I’ve gotten emails from some other Gmail account, for example an Uber receipt. I found that by digging in the header that there was a “x-forwarded-to:” to me. My guess is that the original user accidentally configured a bad email forward.

This happens to me all the time. There are two people, one in Massachusetts and one in Suffolk UK who have my same name and regularly put in FirstLast@gmail as opposed to the first.last@gmail that I use. The Massachusetts person does this because they forget that their gmail is the full version of “first” as opposed to the shorter version I use. The Brit is confusing gmail for hotmail. Yes really. Most people don’t care that much about computers. If it’s possible to screw up, someone will.

Someone gets righteously indignant that this cannot happen in every thread about dots in gmail, despite the fact that there are many people it happens to. They’re not making it up, why would someone do that?

You own both FirstLast@gmail and first.last@gmail. Try send an email to both, and you should get both emails.

They are likely making a typeo elsewhere in their email address which is causing the confusion.

for example:

Steve.foo@gmail.com

stevenfoo@gmai.com

Notice one is Steve and the other is Steven, the dot has nothing to do with it.

No one misunderstands that, as that's what parent said.

Please look at my example up thread. It’s the combination of mistakes amplified by the dots. The dots make it worse by far.

I just searched for my name with no dots in my gmail. Man. It’s a dumpster fire. I have to put up with hundreds and hundred of wrong mails monthly because this feature amplifies the mistakes so much. And it adds to spam because other people type the wrong mails into forms and gmail “fixes” it by ignoring the lack of dots. It’s honestly infuriating. We know we own all versions. We get it. That’s what causes extra work for us and makes us like the product less.

My experience would be significantly improved if I could have all the non canonical addresses bounce. I agree that I would also like nobody else to own one of the other dot versions but that’s also possible.

> My experience would be significantly improved if I could have all the non canonical addresses bounce.

I'm pretty sure you could set up a filter for that.

Yup, downside is people who have had others make mistakes, never see their mail.

Can you please explain how the dots have any affect?

I did, here. Was it not enough info?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37339688

Rewritten: For various reasons, people mistype emails and they usually end up with a no-dotted address. Mine, as the catch-all, gets that mail.

A classic made up example is eg “fred.fredflintstone@gmail”. I have many times received mail for that person because I’m “fred.flintstone@gmail”. People see the double fred, remove the first and hit my account. I also get for “fredtflintstone” (notice the t, many don’t) and this last month “fredrflintstone”. Life would be much easier for all if gmail just bounced those when someone types it as “fredflintstone”. They’d check and fix it.

This is amplified by spam, because any leaks others make hits my account. They should bounce.

This morning I put up a filter to the no dot version. About a month ago someone put my no-dot version on their dodgy Microsoft ads account. I spent ages trying to get off it and somehow Microsoft still hasn’t taken me off. Now I’m just filtering that to deleted, along with mail for all the mistakes above. I’m done. Gmail’s dot policy enables this hugely.

But in your example there is no difference wether Google’s dot policy exists or it doesn’t.

Someone could have setup a dodgy Microsoft ads account to your main email just as easily as the dotted/non-dotted version.

Where is the problem?

Firstly, thank you for engaging on it.

The problems:

1) people who are sending important emails are ending up with the wrong person and they don’t know. Fixing that takes effort on my part, I have to tell individuals or a group mail I’m the wrong person. A bounce would fix that, instantly with no effort. I sometimes try find the right person. That also takes effort, I have to look for clues. Locations, work hints etc.

2) I’m fairly careful with my email. Others aren’t. Most of the spam I get is linked to the wrong address. Those should also be bounces. Because I get mail for all dot variants, I get a multiplied amount of spam compared to just my version.

3) I’m pretty sure a dodgy money making racket is to sign people up via affiliate programs in the hope some of those get added. I see this in a huge amount of random email lists, products etc. I’d say 80% minimum of those use the no-dot version. The problem is that 80% I shouldn’t have to put up with. The people doing this are just being lists of addresses and firing them at anything that works. They aren’t targeting me, they’re just using the strings they’ve harvested. So they don’t know about the version I use.

The Microsoft issue pushed me over the edge. I’m now going to trash that entire set of problem for my own (selfish) purposes by filtering it out. The people being harmed are those whose contacts mis-type addresses and now eg invites to funerals will go to trash.

The optional dots would seem to be irrelevant. You seem to be asking that all email sent to your address, but not intended for you, to be bounced. An email address can only be validated (as in "Is this an email address?") by trying to send mail to it. Assuming the mail is deliverable, there is literally no way for the sender or any mail server involved to know whether the address on the message has anything to do with any person who has access to the contents of that mailbox.

The only possible way that I know of to provide feedback is to send a reply to the sending address. Perhaps you're asking for an addition to the email system so that a recipient can "click a button" to generate at the protocol level a response from your mail server like "errNum% - Wrong recipient. Undeliverable as addressed."?

No, I want all mail that doesn’t use the email address I chose, which is “fred.flintstone@gmail” to be blocked as it would be on any other mail platform. I want gmail to act like any other mail provider, no dot innovation because I don’t want it. I’ve had this address since 2005. That’s a long time to learn about the benefits and costs.

Rule: for any email address variant that is not what the user selected, reply with “550 no such user here”.

Instant reduction in both spam and mistyped emails. Instant feedback to sender.

also, consider the reduction in wrongly sent emails whereby user1 has

fred.flintstone@gmail

and user2 has

fredflintstone@gmail

forgetting a dot is far more likely than someone missing an entire word out of an email address.

The dot policy forces email addresses to be more unique across multiple users and thus would reduce emails being received by the wrong person.

If they forgot a dot and received a "no such mailbox", they'd check and fix it.

Some data, sans opinion: I checked my trash this morning after clearing it out. Total messages in trash: 47. Trashed messages linked to the "fredflintstone" variant: 40, all of them spam. The other 7 are all real messages I've just deleted after reading, none of them are spam.

> If they forgot a dot and received a "no such mailbox", they'd check and fix it.

why would they? do you think another person would not register fredflintstone@gmail and another user could register fred.flint.stone and another user fred.flints.tone

then you have lots of people using email addresses that are the same if the end user excludes the easily forgettable punctuation marks.

Your anecdote about one person who keeps giving your email address out does not mean that Googles dot policy is bad.

I can't expand any further on what I've already said so I'm going to leave the discussion

Two things can be true at the same time:

1 only one person can own all variations

2 that person can choose to have all other variations except the selected one, blocked. Make it a checkbox. Done.

I already said that, and it’s orthogonal to my point.

>The Massachusetts person does this because they forget that their gmail is the full version of “first” as opposed to the shorter version I use.

So they just get their email wrong, and it's nothing to do with dotted variants.

That's the point I think, the dots aren't causing any issues here, some people just assume their account is f.m.lastname@gmail.com and many of them are too stubborn to accept that it's not.

They never had an email address with or without dots that's made up of the same letters as your email address. Their email address is probably very different (maybe they forgot to add a number, or a middle initial, or typed Gmail when they should've typed Outlook). The dots are just a stylistic choice.

Exactly. The dots are useful from a UX perspective, as it makes "incorrectly addressed" email more obvious.

I've spent way too much time thinking about this.

Well, specifically about the kind of person who would use an email address they don't own to (a) buy a house, (b) apply for a FL sheriff's job, (c) conduct financial transactions, etc. (all actual examples I've received).

You think you have a bead on how ignorant people are, and then you realize there's a long tail you weren't aware of...

I think there's also a distinct possibility that the senders just have the wrong email address, especially when it contains a name.

You could own steve.brown@gmail.com but someone you only occasionally do business with might have accidentally put down steven.brown@gmail.com when you first met. Emails back and forth will work (because they can reply to your emails) but when they try to send you email, someone else will receive it.

This can also go unnoticed (i.e. when someone sends an email stating "when are you sending the documents?" -> "I already did, maybe they ended up in spam, here you have them again"). People probably won't notice unless the unintended recipient tells the sender that they got the email address wrong. I imagine that might happen a few times, but after a few years of other people using your email address, you'd stop bothering.

I generally try and reply with "This email address isn't owned by the person you're trying to reach. Please reach out to them and reconfirm what email they want you to use."

Responses have been pretty bizarre though. I usually get what amounts to an "Okay".

I would have expected some sort of "Could you please delete those sensitive documents we sent you?" at minimum.

Also bizarre... I don't have a very common name or email address for my main Gmail.

I can only imagine what john.smith@gmail.com has to deal with.

From a solution / feature perspective, it'd be nice to have a auto-response + trash on anything other than allowlisted dots and plusses. Maybe Gmail supports this? The worst offenders finally got the picture, so I didn't dig into it.

Gmail does support conditional auto replies and filters. You could probably filter out most typos if you stick to your own format for every website and contact you have.

The point is "ignoring dots" doesn't lead to "constantly getting e-mail for other people" (because there are no other people that own the "dotted" version of the email).

It does though. My gmail account has a dot. For some reason someone with a similar name to mine must have for believed his address was the non dotted version of mine and to this day I keep getting emails addressed to this other person... and yes, it is a real person who I've managed to contact.

The point is that without the dots rule I'd never get those emails, and the senders would get their message bounced back right away.

This. This would save me days of time filtering mail.

Without the dots rule, someone else would receive those e-mails, probably also not the intended recipient. Is that better?

But they don't.

You can write rules on f.oo to go a different path than fo.o.

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