[pearlsteinj]

I was curious the last time I sold tickets so actually called them asked about this. The emails are aliases to verify the tickets are valid, then they are forwarded to the buyer.

Usually the format is <email prefix of buyer>@<stubhub controlled domain> and the tickets are forwarded pretty quickly. This way stubhub can actually validate you sent over a PDF + the contents of those PDFs or images if the buyer disputes delivery.

[floomk]

but why would they use shady looking domain names for this?

[oldtownroad]

I’d guess so that ticketmaster etc. can’t identify which tickets are being sold via StubHub. If the domains were identifiable, ticketmaster could block the transfers.

[mskec]

But if StubHub (MarkMonitor Inc.) is visible in WHOIS, then ticketmaster could do a `whois emeraldsummitadvisors.com` and block still block it?

[htrp]

Cat and mouse game with Ticketmaster team..... next up anonymous registrations.

[mskec]

Yeah. That's a slightly more expensive endeavour. The question is is they can scale enough the number of domains and connect to send emails. New domains + not known can have not so good sending reputation. If they use low number of domains, Ticketmaster could start blocking new domains with more than average number of ticket purchases.

[lozenge]

To most people it isn't shady looking? It gives the feeling that you're emailing a person, which might be what they're going for.

[pearlsteinj]

Totally just guessing: Maybe to reduce inbound spam that's forwarded to the buyers? If it was one central email address, spammers could just send a ton of images/PDFs to all known prefixes of that central domain, but needing to guess the prefix + right domain adds a layer of indirection? They may not do much validation on the forwarded tickets, just store it for disputes

[iudqnolq]

Wouldn't it be much cheaper and effective to add a random secret to the bit before the at rather than after?

[jtriangle]

Shady looking domain names are usually cheap and available?

That's my best guess at least.

[esotericimpl]

That makes no sense, why wouldnt it just be @stubhub.com or @stubhubtickets.com