A long long time ago...

Gmail and MS also make other providers jump through crazy hoops too to let users create a new email, lest they be flagged as a “spam” provider and blacklisted by the 2 services.

The modern internet sucks.

This is a pet peeve of mine and I’m sorry to be taking it out on you.

Protecting your data is the biggest exercise in futility in the modern era. You are using Lemmy. I don’t care what services you pay for, someone has your data. They in turn sell it to a third party, who also sells it. The world has your data and paying money to hide your data from google is really stupid.

Unless you live in an outhouse in the woods with no internet, your data no longer belongs to you. Do you think your ISP doesn’t have your data and already sold it? Do you think your bank doesn’t have your data and already sold it? Let me guess you pay Generic VPN $10/month to protect your data. Oh you bought the Fairphone and paid extra for next day shipping so you could release your data from the clutches of google. Oh wait, you use Linux and personally hand picked every line of code so your data won’t ever be stolen.

Enough with the crap about protecting your data. It’s a scam and the money you spend every month on data protection is better spent on a fleshlight.

I never thought I'd meet the inventor of blogs!

Same here. And the reasons you mention are exactly the reason I deleted that account a few years ago when I switched to Fastmail.

A couple of my friends are willing to put up with it, but always mention the volume of spam they deal with.

I've had my new email address for 6-odd years and only have one regular spam source - from a hack of an online shop - but as I used a username+shopname email alias for it, it's easy to detect and automatically handle.

Now I use Fastmail's "Masked Email" feature for each online account. When (not if) a site gets hacked, I just change the site to use a new masked address and block/delete the old one, and then it's useless to scammers/spammers.

Same, the best one was the dude who created an account with my email but his own phone number. So I text him to try and scare him with the fact that some random dude got hold of his private info. He was unfazed and replied "my nephew set it up for me, guess we've got the same email address"...

There is still a woman in the Miami area who uses my email for everything. I've even received her completed tax documents from her accountant and was told to "disregard" when I replied to it. It's been over ten years. My name isn't even Alicia.

Have you RSVPed for the soccer fundraiser yet? -_-

I've had someone's emails for years, every once in a while I get a new one from the doctor or when they need to recover another account its so weird. But they use the same email but with a dot. Even their google recovery emails from another account

I recently signed up for a new email. I check the address sometimes before entering it somewhere. It’s not hard.

Same! Even on Facebook, there is no one with my name (including me). I've recently accquired a lastname.tld domain, and it wasn't taken already :D

That's neat. I had my email on a .social domain and many websites would say it was not a valid address. Now I'm back to my firstlast@gmail.com, fuck everyone.

I own the domain firstname.countrycode so my email address is email@firstname.countrycode, haven't really had many people comment on it though. the previous owner didn't do anything with it and I thought about buying it from him, but a few years ago he forgot to renew it so I snatched it up

Same for me. The lack of email validation is ridiculous.

hah ! that's funny as hell.
There's a guy carrying my name, he works as something of an art dealer, don't know the specifics. I have been included in many conversations. The price some paintings go for is... surprising. Oh and one of the same bunch also runs a christian scouting club or something.

One of my impostors signed up for adult friend finder and tinder using my address. Try explaining that to the wife. I also get important mortgage documents, consulting invoices, family gathering plans, you name it. The ones in Austin TX and London are especially egregious.

Yeah, I never got an early adopter invite, and by the time it launched to the public, someone already had my name. Apparently there’s some middle aged programmer who shares my name, and he got an invite.

I’m using my custom domain email with a hosting service (mailbox.org). Hosting on my own was a pain in the ass and you also have to deal with spam filters not trusting you.

QR codes can help

Sadly I didn’t think to try to grab my last name until recently, and it has been owned for quite a while.

I have a few domain names, including firstnamelastname.co.uk. I mostly use it for spam monitoring; everyone gets a different address, so eBay has ebay@, Microsoft has microsoft@, etc. It's harder for them to link my identities together and if I suddenly start getting fuckloads of spam I know who leaked/sold my address. Fuck you, LinkedIn and LastFM.

I also had my own email server until recently (MailInABox on Proxmox), but I was looking for a cloud storage provider so I ended up signing up for Proton and moving my email there.

What setup did you use? I'm interested in doing this as well. I've already self hosted a NAS with vpn access using an RPI4 with PiVPN. It works quite well.

I have @firstnamelastname.tld since last name was taken (unrelated to me).

Typically use company@firstnamelastname.tld when giving out my email to keep track of spam so I used airline@firstnamelastname.tld when buying tickets.

At the check in the person saw my airline@ email and askes: oh do you also work for airline?

it happens to me too, though my format is lastname.firstinitial, so I have more potential for confusion as my last name isn't super uncommon.

people just sign up for stuff with it. sometimes banks even.

That’s pretty good, for how bad it is.

I have a pretty old gmail address that’s fmlast@gmail, and several years ago there was a lady with fmlast12@gmail who kept leaving the numbers off. It wasn’t that bad though, and for one or two important things I replied to help.

Ugh same. My first name is very common, last name moderately uncommon. I've gotten loads of stuff. Various quotes and invoices (vet, mechanic, window installation), invitations to child care groups, family gathering invitations (that one I think was the person writing the email address, not the person with my name).

Most of the time I just immediately unsubscribe or block or whatever and move on, but there's some (like the child care group) I had to reach out to because that could be potentially dangerous.

Get your own email right, people! It shouldn't be my responsibility to manage your email. Some of that shit includes your home address too.

with DKIP and FARCS, it basically might as well be

What? The curtains?

When I think back on the times I ordered things from eBay by walking to the local convenient store, getting a money order for the winning bid amount and sticking it in an envelope to mail it to some random address for someone I'd never met expecting I was going to get an object back for the money, it's crazy that it worked for me every time. My brother would also buy cards online (basketball, baseball) and had a local shelf at a card shop here. He'd buy cards at the store when they were cheaper than they sold online, and those online that he could sell higher in the store. That led him down a hole where he used Bitcoin at one point for trading cards. He's one of those people that had 9 Bitcoin or some shit left with the key on a flash drive or something. At the time that was probably $7 or some shit so he lost track of it. Just had the numbers in his excel document with what was left from the purchases. He probably formatted it for use for some school project or something and never thought twice about it. Crazy to think that could have been sold for near a million dollars now haha

I have just surname@gmail. On the one hand, easier to get, on the other hand, I get tons of spam from people who fucked up entering their intended recipient. It's the type of thing that seems cool on paper and in reality carries monkey paw consequences.

I have just my last name, and get signed up for all kinds of bullshit by people with my last name because they'll enter firstname

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I have a first name that is of Saxon origin but this name has also developed in Sanskrit independently from the Saxon name and the name is very common in India. One of my email addresses is [firstname]123@gmail.com I often get email directed to some Indian bloke. And it’s always for a different guy. I think these people don’t have an email and just make one up when they signed up for something. I even get someone’s banking communications.

Found Alex Fresco!

I have an uncommon Anglo Saxon first name. (Funny thing is this name is very common in India but the Indian and Saxon version don’t share the same origin) and I have an uncommon French last name. So I have every variation of my full name as a Gmail address.

my ex wife’s

At first, I was like "damn that's some next level revenge" before I realized what you meant

Wouldnt you get extra spam for having such a simple name?

Denvil my man, have a great day!!

They still exist. You can grab a new one for free whenever. They only expire if you don't use them for ~6 months, and then you just ask for a new one.

They are great for a small business Lines?