4 ms·

I've never been contacted but here is a #lifehack if you use gmail sign up with youremail+domain to track who is selling your info.

coryl 11y ago
Could a smart marketer simply query the list for all emails with "+" and truncate from there?
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Yes and some websites refuse + in email.
  - psherman 11y ago
    That would be preferable to what happened to me once. I tried using a + filter and it was accepted but I never received booking information for my trip. When my trip was getting closer I realized I didn't have a confirmation number, and after a long conversation with customer service, it turned out that instead of "<email>+<filter>@gmail.com" my email address was saved as "<email> <filter>@gmail.com", so nothing ever made it through to me.
    - cperciva 11y ago
      I'll bet that's a URL-decoding bug -- space gets encoded as plus, so if they decoded an extra time your plus would turn into a space. I've made that mistake a few times myself.
ams6110 11y ago
More than a few sites refuse '+' in their email address validators.
- imglorp 11y ago
  I've always wondered if those site inputs are due to ignorance of RFC 2822, or because they are aware of it and are basically letting you know that your address is going out the door. Bad either way :/
Gustomaximus 11y ago
In a similar vein, I keep a domain set up with an open mail address for anything at that domain. I sign-up with the format of the domain and date as my email prefix. Surprisingly I've only seen one misuse of email address doing this for a few years. And I sign-up to competition and the usual suspects quite regularly. The bigger one I find abused these days is phone numbers. I guess it's harder to track source hence more dodgy brothers activity here.
scintill76 11y ago
Yeah, if you ignore the corollary #shadybusinesshack, which is to strip + suffixes from @gmail.com addresses, or any other domain with gmail MX records. Slightly more advanced trick is exploiting the fact that Gmail ignores . in addresses, so that first.last@gmail.com, firstlast, fi.rst.la.st, firstlast.., are almost infinitely unique encodings of the same mailbox. But again, smart spammers can just remove all dots so that the spammee can't tell who sold the address.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
gaadd33 11y ago
Even better if you run your own mail server, have it use . as the suffix character instead of + e.g. you+comcast@domain.com becomes you.comcast@domain.com This evades sites that filter on +'s and spammers that strip them out to anonymize their list. Also if they strip out the dots to further anonymize it, they just create invalid email addresses. Admittedly this only works because not everyone does it.
avinassh 11y ago
I used to do this when it was new and not many people were aware of it. Nowadays some sites don't accept emails with '+' at all. Then I setup an forwarding email server, which forward <anything here>@mydomain.com to my main email. So I would register at sites like sitename@mydomain.com. Sometimes, if required to send emails from registered email then I would create a new email and send. Now, I have switched to Abine Blur and free version works fine for me. They have a chrome extension and it generates random email whenever you are filling the email field in web forms. (or you can generate random emails at will). Only caveat is, you cannot reply from that email. So, in such cases, I login to the site, change my email to something else and compose emails. I suggest everyone to using Blur or similar tools. The guys who are running your site will ever know your real email.

coryl 11y ago

Could a smart marketer simply query the list for all emails with "+" and truncate from there?

hellbanner 11y ago
Yes and some websites refuse + in email.
- psherman 11y ago
  That would be preferable to what happened to me once. I tried using a + filter and it was accepted but I never received booking information for my trip. When my trip was getting closer I realized I didn't have a confirmation number, and after a long conversation with customer service, it turned out that instead of "<email>+<filter>@gmail.com" my email address was saved as "<email> <filter>@gmail.com", so nothing ever made it through to me.
  - cperciva 11y ago
    I'll bet that's a URL-decoding bug -- space gets encoded as plus, so if they decoded an extra time your plus would turn into a space. I've made that mistake a few times myself.

ams6110 11y ago

More than a few sites refuse '+' in their email address validators.

imglorp 11y ago
I've always wondered if those site inputs are due to ignorance of RFC 2822, or because they are aware of it and are basically letting you know that your address is going out the door. Bad either way :/

Gustomaximus 11y ago

In a similar vein, I keep a domain set up with an open mail address for anything at that domain. I sign-up with the format of the domain and date as my email prefix. Surprisingly I've only seen one misuse of email address doing this for a few years. And I sign-up to competition and the usual suspects quite regularly. The bigger one I find abused these days is phone numbers. I guess it's harder to track source hence more dodgy brothers activity here.

scintill76 11y ago

Yeah, if you ignore the corollary #shadybusinesshack, which is to strip + suffixes from @gmail.com addresses, or any other domain with gmail MX records. Slightly more advanced trick is exploiting the fact that Gmail ignores . in addresses, so that first.last@gmail.com, firstlast, fi.rst.la.st, firstlast.., are almost infinitely unique encodings of the same mailbox. But again, smart spammers can just remove all dots so that the spammee can't tell who sold the address.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

gaadd33 11y ago

Even better if you run your own mail server, have it use . as the suffix character instead of + e.g. you+comcast@domain.com becomes you.comcast@domain.com This evades sites that filter on +'s and spammers that strip them out to anonymize their list. Also if they strip out the dots to further anonymize it, they just create invalid email addresses. Admittedly this only works because not everyone does it.

avinassh 11y ago

I used to do this when it was new and not many people were aware of it. Nowadays some sites don't accept emails with '+' at all. Then I setup an forwarding email server, which forward <anything here>@mydomain.com to my main email. So I would register at sites like sitename@mydomain.com. Sometimes, if required to send emails from registered email then I would create a new email and send. Now, I have switched to Abine Blur and free version works fine for me. They have a chrome extension and it generates random email whenever you are filling the email field in web forms. (or you can generate random emails at will). Only caveat is, you cannot reply from that email. So, in such cases, I login to the site, change my email to something else and compose emails. I suggest everyone to using Blur or similar tools. The guys who are running your site will ever know your real email.