RE: Do you use GMAIL? If so, you need to know this!

[ghasemkiani]

If there was someone else with a GMail ID of "johnsmith", Google would not let you create an account with the ID "John.Smith". So, it is impossible that someone else gets your emails.

Comments

[rkreddy]

That is not true...if it were, Google wouldn't give out example showing the email examples AND the fact that I keep receiving emails that are clearly sent to john.smith where my email has no . is a proof!

[ghasemkiani]

From Official Gmail Blog:

Insert one or several dots (".") anywhere in your email address. Gmail doesn't recognize periods as characters in addresses -- we just ignore them. For example, you could tell people your address was [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]. (We understand that there has been some confusion about this in the past, but to settle it once and for all, you can indeed receive mail at all the variations with dots.)

[rkreddy]

yes, it ignores . but it let you create accounts, that is the issue, we know it sends the email to ALL emails with and without the dots (".")....

[alphavision]

No, it is not Google letting you create accounts. I just tried creating versions of my addresses and nothing was allowed. I got this message: Someone already has that username. Note that we ignore periods and capitalization in usernames. Try another?

Instead Websites and services allow creating different accounts using the same e-mail, but with dots placed on different places.

Ideally a Website should strip down the dots and check whether there is already a [email protected] when someone tries to create account with [email protected].