There was definitely a time, maybe a few years ago in the 2013-2014 range, when opening a new Gmail account required a phone number to activate[1]. The rule was

There was definitely a time, maybe a few years ago in the 2013-2014 range, when opening a new Gmail account required a phone number to activate[1]. The rule wasn't applied to every one, it was based on some heuristic or another. Though, amusingly enough, you could use a Google Voice number and there was no limit to the number of accounts one number could activate (at least not that I noticed). 1 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Google-Yahoo-make-phone-numbers-mandatory-for-new-email-IDs/articleshow/40045322.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Google-Yah...