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Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, there is no UI for removing this category when it's incorrect or when I wish to opt out. Ironically, since the only purchas

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, there is no UI for removing this category when it's incorrect or when I wish to opt out. Ironically, since the only purchases my Gmail contains receipts for are for someone who isn't me but apparently decided to use my email address, whatever database these are feeding that Google thinks is "about me" is steadily being corrupted to death by a complete stranger. Oh well :)

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
> Oh well :) Not going to be so great when they engage in criminal activity that points back to you. I do a password reset on their account whenever I find someone using my email. Then you can change the email to a throwaway or delete the account. It's unsafe to let it be.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  There is a long paper trail full of evidence of my attempting to contact people to get them to stop sending me someone else's email. If some idiotic prosecutor can't tell the difference between some jerk in Missouri and me, they deserve the judge's derision when the confusion is uncovered. Gmail does not allow changing email addresses, and if I delete the account, I lose access to a recovery email that I'm executing a multi-year migration away from. That's simply not an acceptable step to take to mitigate the unlikely risk you describe. There's also some jerk at AOL who forwarded their email to me mistakenly over a decade ago, and I've tried to contact AOL, which of course they won't consider since I'm not the person who set the broken forward. While I appreciate your concern, I've already taken it into consideration as best as permitted by the tools available. If you are aware of a way to change a gmail address without creating a new Google Account, then of course I would love to hear about it.
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    It's a lost cause. I'm over a decade into the transition you are undertaking and I've basically just accepted that it will always be an account I can't get rid of - so I use it as a "you need my email address but I don't trust you" account. Nobody ever has any concern if you give them a gmail account. Over 50% of the email this account receives is for other people and frequently the "To:" field isn't even an exact match for my address! If you do start getting stuff that looks like it might cause you problems: be proactive. Do not wait around to embarrass some prosecutor. By that time, you've already spent thousands of dollars and had your reputation dragged through the mud. I once started getting legal threats meant for someone else. I had a lawyer call up that lawyer and it was cleared up in less than 10 minutes. Another time I started getting emails from/to a person with the same name as me at the State Department that definitely should not have been sent through a non-government server. I talked to someone I knew at the US Attorneys Office about it and those emails stopped immediately (doubt that guy still works there, LOL).
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      Yes, none of it was ever a lawyer.
  - U8dcN7vx 5y ago
    I believe the suggestion is to do something about the account on the other service that has been pointed to your address, e.g., if United Airlines is sending you mail about flights you never booked, perform a password recovery on the UA account thereby locking out the person that entered the wrong email address. I'm not sure I agree. But then it doesn't often happen to me.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      That could be inferred as unauthorized computer systems access under various laws, so I don't personally, but it's definitely something you can try to do in varying degrees.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

> Oh well :) Not going to be so great when they engage in criminal activity that points back to you. I do a password reset on their account whenever I find someone using my email. Then you can change the email to a throwaway or delete the account. It's unsafe to let it be.

floatingatoll 5y ago
There is a long paper trail full of evidence of my attempting to contact people to get them to stop sending me someone else's email. If some idiotic prosecutor can't tell the difference between some jerk in Missouri and me, they deserve the judge's derision when the confusion is uncovered. Gmail does not allow changing email addresses, and if I delete the account, I lose access to a recovery email that I'm executing a multi-year migration away from. That's simply not an acceptable step to take to mitigate the unlikely risk you describe. There's also some jerk at AOL who forwarded their email to me mistakenly over a decade ago, and I've tried to contact AOL, which of course they won't consider since I'm not the person who set the broken forward. While I appreciate your concern, I've already taken it into consideration as best as permitted by the tools available. If you are aware of a way to change a gmail address without creating a new Google Account, then of course I would love to hear about it.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  It's a lost cause. I'm over a decade into the transition you are undertaking and I've basically just accepted that it will always be an account I can't get rid of - so I use it as a "you need my email address but I don't trust you" account. Nobody ever has any concern if you give them a gmail account. Over 50% of the email this account receives is for other people and frequently the "To:" field isn't even an exact match for my address! If you do start getting stuff that looks like it might cause you problems: be proactive. Do not wait around to embarrass some prosecutor. By that time, you've already spent thousands of dollars and had your reputation dragged through the mud. I once started getting legal threats meant for someone else. I had a lawyer call up that lawyer and it was cleared up in less than 10 minutes. Another time I started getting emails from/to a person with the same name as me at the State Department that definitely should not have been sent through a non-government server. I talked to someone I knew at the US Attorneys Office about it and those emails stopped immediately (doubt that guy still works there, LOL).
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    Yes, none of it was ever a lawyer.
- U8dcN7vx 5y ago
  I believe the suggestion is to do something about the account on the other service that has been pointed to your address, e.g., if United Airlines is sending you mail about flights you never booked, perform a password recovery on the UA account thereby locking out the person that entered the wrong email address. I'm not sure I agree. But then it doesn't often happen to me.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    That could be inferred as unauthorized computer systems access under various laws, so I don't personally, but it's definitely something you can try to do in varying degrees.