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I don't really get this. Where do you draw the line between disposable and non-disposable email? What prevents anyone from creating <random string>@gmail.com ad

I don't really get this. Where do you draw the line between disposable and non-disposable email? What prevents anyone from creating <random string>@gmail.com addresses?

Spivak 5y ago
Nothing, but if you try to create 1000 of such emails you’ll get banned by Google.
- franga2000 5y ago
  A normal user wouldn't make anywhere near that many and to a bot developer, "banned by Google" doesn't present even the slightest of challenges. Source: I develop web scrapers for many sites that really don't want to be scraped, including Google/Abc properties.
josephcsible 5y ago
The phone number requirement?
- sahkopoyta 5y ago
  See my other comment. Gmail was bad example, outlook has no restrictions.
lategloriousgnu 5y ago
You need a valid phone number to create a gmail account, and you can only have a few accounts attached to the same number. Google is "trusted" because they actively try to prevent spammers from joining their platform. Disposable email platforms don't, they let you create as many as you like.
- sahkopoyta 5y ago
  Ok my bad gmail was not a good example. Lets go with outlook account then. Just tried and it definitely doesn't need phone number. And I wouldn't consider outlook disposable platform.
- franga2000 5y ago
  At least a third of spam registrations on a platform I run come from Gmail addresses, with another third from yandex and yahoo. They also all went away after we implemented a nearly trivial captcha in the registration flow. Seems to me that 1) Gmail accounts aren't that hard to farm 2) most spam comes from free webmail providers not disposable email and 3) a captcha will solve most of your problems and if it doesn't, it means your site is being specifically targeted by someone with cash to burn, so you can assume that they'll have emails that aren't on the blacklist. At that point, invest in detection and moderation.
- tmitech 5y ago
  >You need a valid phone number to create a gmail account This is 100% not true. Yes, the main site will require it, but there are legacy "portals" that allow signup without a phone number. No, I won't link to said portal.
martenson 5y ago
Sometimes it's hard. We try to keep our little list useful but it can never be a full solution -- I hope it cannot ever be and people value their privacy enough to not give up the freedoms of internet and TCP/IP. As of gmail -- one of the guidelines for the list addition is whether you need to go through some sort of a registration. If you do then it is usually not treated as disposable by us.

I don't really get this. Where do you draw the line between disposable and non-disposable email? What prevents anyone from creating <random string>@gmail.com addresses?

Spivak 5y ago

Nothing, but if you try to create 1000 of such emails you’ll get banned by Google.

franga2000 5y ago
A normal user wouldn't make anywhere near that many and to a bot developer, "banned by Google" doesn't present even the slightest of challenges. Source: I develop web scrapers for many sites that really don't want to be scraped, including Google/Abc properties.

josephcsible 5y ago

The phone number requirement?

sahkopoyta 5y ago
See my other comment. Gmail was bad example, outlook has no restrictions.

lategloriousgnu 5y ago

You need a valid phone number to create a gmail account, and you can only have a few accounts attached to the same number. Google is "trusted" because they actively try to prevent spammers from joining their platform. Disposable email platforms don't, they let you create as many as you like.

sahkopoyta 5y ago
Ok my bad gmail was not a good example. Lets go with outlook account then. Just tried and it definitely doesn't need phone number. And I wouldn't consider outlook disposable platform.
franga2000 5y ago
At least a third of spam registrations on a platform I run come from Gmail addresses, with another third from yandex and yahoo. They also all went away after we implemented a nearly trivial captcha in the registration flow. Seems to me that 1) Gmail accounts aren't that hard to farm 2) most spam comes from free webmail providers not disposable email and 3) a captcha will solve most of your problems and if it doesn't, it means your site is being specifically targeted by someone with cash to burn, so you can assume that they'll have emails that aren't on the blacklist. At that point, invest in detection and moderation.
tmitech 5y ago
>You need a valid phone number to create a gmail account This is 100% not true. Yes, the main site will require it, but there are legacy "portals" that allow signup without a phone number. No, I won't link to said portal.

martenson 5y ago

Sometimes it's hard. We try to keep our little list useful but it can never be a full solution -- I hope it cannot ever be and people value their privacy enough to not give up the freedoms of internet and TCP/IP. As of gmail -- one of the guidelines for the list addition is whether you need to go through some sort of a registration. If you do then it is usually not treated as disposable by us.