Comment by cube00 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cube00 | Hacker News Reader

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> - similarly, if a vendor leaks or sells my data and I start receiving marketing from somewhere I don't expect it's easier to trace the source of the leak (and in some cases just blackhole that entire email address)

This is exactly why I do it, it's eye opening to see exactly which companies leaked your address. As a result of being able to blackhole the leaked addresses I no longer get any spam, the Dvorak dream.

I actually caught a company outright selling my address to AWS of all places, I didn't even know Amazon purchased mailing lists.

AWS were crafty because they didn't directly sell a service, they only offered "resources" for "business leaders" because they knew nothing about what I might need.

Explore the AWS [REDACTED] where business leaders can access eBooks, guides, and customer stories to find practical advice on building or improving upon a data strategy. Learn how you can leverage data as a strategic asset, make better decisions with insights from data, and innovate faster.

I find this very interesting in 2026.

I use my gmail address for everything and I don't really get spam (except from services I've subscribed to legitimately but haven't bothered to configure to not send promotional mail).

I never really get promotional mail from 3rd parties at all.

Is this just gmail filters being very good?

Gmail filters are very good, dod you check your spam folder?

No why would I do that? :)

Gmail blackholes even more spam, not even sending it to your spam folder.

Gmail filters are very good. But if someone with the same name as you starts using your e-mail address for everything because they don't understand or care about needing to see the e-mails they receive then there's very little you can do to stop it other than unsubbing from lists they sign up for (where possible).

I've been getting someone else's e-mail traffic for about 5 years now, on two separate Gmail accounts, and while occasionally hilarious, it is somewhat scary to see how much I can know about their lives from the type of e-mails they get. I have replied to inform some of the senders about the situation with the suggestion that they could tell the other person involved to use a new e-mail address, but it is still happening. You'd think that they would need to see some of the important work-related mail they receive yet they are apparently utterly oblivious.

I occasionally also get similar mail to my own domain through a catch-all filter.

It's quite funny how little some people understand about what an e-mail address is, or how it's supposed to be used, even today.

> very little you can do to stop it other than unsubbing from lists they sign up for (where possible)

It certainly felt that way when someone was giving my GMail out to the cashier at the hardware store where I got no end of digital receipts which I couldn't unsubscribe from because they're providing the email address to the cashier each time. As they were receipts from a large verified brand Google treated them with the highest priority.

You can create a custom filter for this kind of thing, fwiw.

why'd you get a Gmail with your personal name? isn't it kinda risky to give that out to every site and etc?

Got it years ago when Gmail was still in beta. My friend sent me an invite and yes I was actually excited to get invited to use the new 'Google Mail'. 1GB mailbox? Wow cool! How times change. The address is mostly dormant but still required for certain services/accounts so I can't just delete it. Probably better to squat it anyway, all things considered.

I've been in a similar situation for almost a decade now. There's an elderly woman who's email address is one character away on the keyboard from my own, and I often get emails meant for her. I tried for years to respond to inform them that they are using the incorrect email address, to no avail. At this point I've started to go in and disable/cancel anything that is signed up for with my email address and have to aggressively filter spam.

Yes, gmail filters are VERY good.

>Yes, gmail filters are VERY good.

But might gmail junk filters be the best junk mail filters for nefarious proprietary reasons, possibly?

Hard disagree. Unless by "good" you mean that a third of your legitimate email is shoved in spam by gmail. That is not good, by any measure.

Even the simplest bayesian filter will score better than gmail.

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