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I did this with even less setup. accountname+extratext@gmail.com has worked forever and you can do the same with a custom domain. I gave up fairly quickly becau

by pfranz 5y ago

I did this with even less setup. accountname+extratext@gmail.com has worked forever and you can do the same with a custom domain. I gave up fairly quickly because unless you keep meticulous records, there's no way to figure out the exact email you used very easily and I didn't get that much out of doing it. I actually don't accept *@domain.tld even though I have a custom domain because I got too many fishing emails that weren't caught in spam. I didn't have the patience to deal with it. That might have changed over the decade+, though.

jorams 5y ago
> unless you keep meticulous records, there's no way to figure out the exact email you used very easily I haven't found this to be a problem. Usually it's in my password manager. Otherwise they've sent me an email, which I can quickly search my inbox for.
acatton 5y ago
> I gave up fairly quickly because unless you keep meticulous records, there's no way to figure out the exact email you used very easily and I didn't get that much out of doing it. Does one need to keep records? I just do service@domain.tld, for example: ycombinator@example.net. I started receiving a lot of sexually-explicit spam addressed to recruiting@mydomain.tld, so now I know that one of the recruiters to which I gave this email address had their inbox/contact-list compromised.
- pfranz 5y ago
  Where I got bit was email was used as login. I was trying to log in but couldn't remember the specific email I had used even though I generally had a fairly specific schema.
bouncycastle 5y ago
A lot of services already worked out the + trick. Not many know about this feature of gmail yet: You can also put a dot anywhere inside your username. eg. a.ccountname@gmail.com is the same as ac.countname@gmail.com acco.untname@gmail.com and so on.
propogandist 5y ago
Be aware that using the “+” is giving you the illusion of privacy and control. A privacy research has shown, back in 2020, that companies like Oracle’s Bluekai (a massive ‘data broker’) has functions to normalize email with + in them to help with ad targeting and matching. Other vendors and companies like FB are surely doing this too, as companies send FB emails for matching / ad targeting. https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1288428611100454912 https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1288428611100454912
- pfranz 5y ago
  I guess it's good to know, but I never had any illusions of using it for privacy. It was mostly to see when I get added to a mailing list, where it might have come from. Another reason I abandoned it so quickly is, if someone sold my email address and put me on a new list, what can I do about it?

by pfranz 5y ago

jorams 5y ago

> unless you keep meticulous records, there's no way to figure out the exact email you used very easily I haven't found this to be a problem. Usually it's in my password manager. Otherwise they've sent me an email, which I can quickly search my inbox for.

acatton 5y ago

> I gave up fairly quickly because unless you keep meticulous records, there's no way to figure out the exact email you used very easily and I didn't get that much out of doing it. Does one need to keep records? I just do service@domain.tld, for example: ycombinator@example.net. I started receiving a lot of sexually-explicit spam addressed to recruiting@mydomain.tld, so now I know that one of the recruiters to which I gave this email address had their inbox/contact-list compromised.

pfranz 5y ago
Where I got bit was email was used as login. I was trying to log in but couldn't remember the specific email I had used even though I generally had a fairly specific schema.

bouncycastle 5y ago

A lot of services already worked out the + trick. Not many know about this feature of gmail yet: You can also put a dot anywhere inside your username. eg. a.ccountname@gmail.com is the same as ac.countname@gmail.com acco.untname@gmail.com and so on.

propogandist 5y ago

Be aware that using the “+” is giving you the illusion of privacy and control. A privacy research has shown, back in 2020, that companies like Oracle’s Bluekai (a massive ‘data broker’) has functions to normalize email with + in them to help with ad targeting and matching. Other vendors and companies like FB are surely doing this too, as companies send FB emails for matching / ad targeting. https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1288428611100454912 https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1288428611100454912

pfranz 5y ago
I guess it's good to know, but I never had any illusions of using it for privacy. It was mostly to see when I get added to a mailing list, where it might have come from. Another reason I abandoned it so quickly is, if someone sold my email address and put me on a new list, what can I do about it?