[antsam]

For the longest time, I used to receive someone else's e-mails on GMail. Our e-mail addresses were very similar except that mine had periods in it and his apparently didn't. Either that or he really loved signing me up for things.

[nitrogen]

Periods are supposed to be ignored in GMail addresses, so maybe this other person's address was very similar to the period-stripped version of yours.

[bdunbar]

I get emails intended for other guys with my first and last name at gmail.

Since periods don't matter, I assume since _I_ grabbed firstlast those other guys have had to settle for firstlast + a random bit tacked on. Later they write it down wrong, or their correspondants omit the random bit.

Quite interesting. I've gotten bids on paving jobs from Scotland. Inquires about DJing in Florida. Invoices from a consultant in Seattle.

[andrewaylett]

My understanding is that Google strips full stops before comparing email addresses and accounts for equality, which is really annoying when people split their email addresses differently at different times, making them look distinct when they are actually the same.

[myko]

It's really useful to me.

I have a filter for messages to: [e-mail]

which marks the message read and moves it out of my inbox.

This is the address I give out to companies whose correspondences I don't care to read generally but don't necessarily want to go directly to the trash.

[scott_karana]

You can also use + suffixes, which allows you to label.the address.

[e-mail] for example.

[SoftwareMaven]

Assuming the crappy regex on the form will accept it.. :( It's better now, but I still fail about 20% of the time.

[sesqu]

Similarly, I give out period-wise permutations.

[doobley]

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313?hl=en