4 ms·

There is no bug in Gmail. This bug has nothing to do with Gmail, it is with Netflix not clearly communicating when verifying the address a user claims to own.

ksk 9y ago
The bug is in humans. Heck, I regularly come across people who think the case in an email address matters! While there is no bug in Gmail, that is irrelevant because you have to deal with the reality of how people use your product. Its basic engineering. Standards are simply a means for interoperability. In this case, the dots don't matter much for that goal.
- sandov 9y ago
  The case in an email address does matter. Look it up.
  - spc476 9y ago
    RFC-5322 (the current standard for Internet Message Formats) in section 3.4.1 states, "... how address is used and how messages are transported to a particular host is covered in separate documents, such as [RFC5321]." RFC-5321 states in section 2.3.11: ''The standard mailbox naming convention is defined to be "local-part@domain"; contemporary usage permits a much broader set of applications than simple "user names". Consequently, and due to a long history of problems when intermediate hosts have attempted to optimize transport by modifying them, the local-part MUST be interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host specified in the domain part of the address.' Furthermore, it states in section 2.4: 'The local-part of a mailbox MUST BE treated as case sensitive. Therefore, SMTP implementations MUST take care to preserve the case of mailbox local-parts. In particular, for some hosts, the user "smith" is different from the user "Smith". However, exploiting the case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability and is discouraged. Mailbox domains follow normal DNS rules and are hence not case sensitive.' While you are pedantically correct, to me that reads, "don't try to change the case of the local portion of email addresses and apply no meaning to it." In other words, treat it "as-is" and assume nothing about it.
  - ksk 9y ago
    Where does it matter? Can you give an example?
    - sandov 9y ago
      If I send an email to John@company.com instead of john@company.com and the server of company.com is configured to be case sensitive, then john will never see my email.
      - Too 9y ago
        It is allowed to matter per the rfc. However I believe 99% of all mail servers in the world are configured to make it non case sensitive.
        sandov 9y ago
        >It is allowed to matter And we don't know when it will matter and when it won't matter, therefore we have to assume that it does matter unless we are sure it doesn't for our specific case.
      - ksk 9y ago
        I see, so not relevant in the real world. Thanks!
        dang 9y ago
        Please don't be rude on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        ksk 9y ago
        I wasn't trying to be. I was mildly annoyed that this person was being needlessly pendantic about an irrelevant point that doesn't matter in any way whatsoever in the real world. They failed to give an example that matters.
axoltl 9y ago
While I agree with you from a technical perspective, Netflix isn't going to be the only one with this particular issue. If you addressed the issue at gmail, you can be sure you've fixed it for all the little leaves.
- nybble41 9y ago
  The problem with this reasoning is that doing away with the "dots don't matter" policy would not fix the more general issue of e-mail aliasing. Besides variations in dots, there are also "+labels" (which Netflix must also consider a valid and necessary part of the e-mail address, per the RFCs) and the fact that for every "xyz@gmail.com" address there is an equivalent "xyz@googlemail.com" address. Unlike "dots don't matter", labels are a useful and well-liked feature, supported by many mail servers (though not always using "+" as the delimiter). Removing them would be an extremely unpopular move on Google's part. No account-related emails (other than e-mail validation) should be sent to the e-mail address on file until it has been validated. Period.

ksk 9y ago

The bug is in humans. Heck, I regularly come across people who think the case in an email address matters! While there is no bug in Gmail, that is irrelevant because you have to deal with the reality of how people use your product. Its basic engineering. Standards are simply a means for interoperability. In this case, the dots don't matter much for that goal.

sandov 9y ago
The case in an email address does matter. Look it up.
- spc476 9y ago
  RFC-5322 (the current standard for Internet Message Formats) in section 3.4.1 states, "... how address is used and how messages are transported to a particular host is covered in separate documents, such as [RFC5321]." RFC-5321 states in section 2.3.11: ''The standard mailbox naming convention is defined to be "local-part@domain"; contemporary usage permits a much broader set of applications than simple "user names". Consequently, and due to a long history of problems when intermediate hosts have attempted to optimize transport by modifying them, the local-part MUST be interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host specified in the domain part of the address.' Furthermore, it states in section 2.4: 'The local-part of a mailbox MUST BE treated as case sensitive. Therefore, SMTP implementations MUST take care to preserve the case of mailbox local-parts. In particular, for some hosts, the user "smith" is different from the user "Smith". However, exploiting the case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability and is discouraged. Mailbox domains follow normal DNS rules and are hence not case sensitive.' While you are pedantically correct, to me that reads, "don't try to change the case of the local portion of email addresses and apply no meaning to it." In other words, treat it "as-is" and assume nothing about it.
- ksk 9y ago
  Where does it matter? Can you give an example?
  - sandov 9y ago
    If I send an email to John@company.com instead of john@company.com and the server of company.com is configured to be case sensitive, then john will never see my email.
    - Too 9y ago
      It is allowed to matter per the rfc. However I believe 99% of all mail servers in the world are configured to make it non case sensitive.
      - sandov 9y ago
        >It is allowed to matter And we don't know when it will matter and when it won't matter, therefore we have to assume that it does matter unless we are sure it doesn't for our specific case.
    - ksk 9y ago
      I see, so not relevant in the real world. Thanks!
      - dang 9y ago
        Please don't be rude on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        ksk 9y ago
        I wasn't trying to be. I was mildly annoyed that this person was being needlessly pendantic about an irrelevant point that doesn't matter in any way whatsoever in the real world. They failed to give an example that matters.

axoltl 9y ago

While I agree with you from a technical perspective, Netflix isn't going to be the only one with this particular issue. If you addressed the issue at gmail, you can be sure you've fixed it for all the little leaves.

nybble41 9y ago
The problem with this reasoning is that doing away with the "dots don't matter" policy would not fix the more general issue of e-mail aliasing. Besides variations in dots, there are also "+labels" (which Netflix must also consider a valid and necessary part of the e-mail address, per the RFCs) and the fact that for every "xyz@gmail.com" address there is an equivalent "xyz@googlemail.com" address. Unlike "dots don't matter", labels are a useful and well-liked feature, supported by many mail servers (though not always using "+" as the delimiter). Removing them would be an extremely unpopular move on Google's part. No account-related emails (other than e-mail validation) should be sent to the e-mail address on file until it has been validated. Period.