[richardw]

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.

[xigoi]

> 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.

[richardw]

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

[InsomniacL]

Can you please explain how the dots have any affect?

[richardw]

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.

[InsomniacL]

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?

[richardw]

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.

[IIsi50MHz]

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."?

[richardw]

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.

[InsomniacL]

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.

[richardw]

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.

[InsomniacL]

> 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

[richardw]

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.