How dose ignoring dots cause you to receive other peoples mail?
If you don't want to use the feature, you don't have to. Lots of people find it extremely useful.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en#zippy=%...
> if your email is johnsmith@gmail.com, you own all dotted versions of your address
> If anyone tries to create a Gmail account with a dotted version of your username, they'll get an error saying the username is already taken.
> Your account is still private and secure. Emails sent to any dotted version of your address will only go to you.
Note: my bit of research into this taught me that the googlemail.com domain is used by Gmail users in Germany, Russia, and Poland where the Gmail trademark was already taken 1. In each case, Google was forced to use “googlemail” and therefore googlemail.com instead. As of 2012, the situation with Germany was straightened out and new users to Gmail there get assigned a gmail.com domain.
If you have John.Doe registered, no one can register johndoe or any with or without dots version.
Gmail (rightly or wrongly, whatever) ignore the dots when creating your account and deliver any with or without dots combination to you.
You’re not receiving anyone else’s mail and no one could have registered another account with/without dots to conflict with it.
One person is x.yz@gmail. Tens of times I’ve had people or systems strip the x, I am y.z and get their mail. Invites to funerals. Business mail. Admittedly reduced lately, he probably uses it less.
One professor has a “t” in his name, so “ytz”. People miss the t and send to yz. Dot gets ignored so I get those. I get assignments, or people pleading for extensions. That’s stopped over time.
The stuff is important so I tried hard to get it to the right person. But a bounce to the sender would have been better. It’s a bit wearying to be a post forwarder.
Most of the spam I get is to yz. Some makes it through. I’ve never used that version, ever. I just checked spam now. First 4 messages were to “yz”.
So many mistakes get sent to that version. After many years I tried setting a rule to block that version because it’s definitely not for me, but no go (although maybe that’s why I get less now of the above two examples. I’ll check my rules in the morning). I’ve had the address since the earliest intro-only days so it’s had time to add crud.
