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 variatio

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.