> Services that allow sign-up without proof of email (eg. by clicking a link in a verification email) ownership are just obnoxious in general.
I feel the opposite. Many services that force sign-up with proof of email (eg. by clicking a link in a verification email) ownership are obnoxious. It's annoying to have to give a valid email address to sign up for an account just to use a service that wouldn't be required to regularly send things to my inbox otherwise.
This site does it right. Allow account sign up without any email address at all, and then allow users who want email from the site (even if just for something like password recovery) to add their address post-signup.
Most of the time if someone signs up for something with an email address that isn't theirs (successfully or not) it's because they either mistyped their real address or they just don't want that service to send them spam or sell their address to others who'll spam them.
I'd guess that when people are asked to give an email address where none should be needed people often try using a random address because they want to avoid the spam, only to find out they needed to click a link. which likely also generates a lot of unwanted junk in people's mailboxes, but it's hard to blame users who are just trying to protect themselves and don't know a better way.
People tried things like "10 Minute Mail" or signing up for a bunch of anon email accounts at various free services like yahoo, excite, hotmail, and gmail but these days many free email services demand ID to create an account (or an existing email address that does) or addresses at those domains are blocked by websites who want something real to spam.
For me, if whatever@example.com doesn't work I just won't use that service.
It's great if they don't require any email, but if they get one & intend to use it, what prevents them from spamming someone who doesn't even control the account?
Again, my personal methiod is using example.com which doesn't impact anyone else, but I get your point.
I'm not saying it's right to toss your trash into your neighbors yard, but if you're not allowed to use a trash bin, and nobody ever comes to your house to collect garbage it's not not hard to imagine why it happens that some folks will chuck their trash anywhere.
Most people only do those types of things because they've been backed into a corner and don't know what else to do. Give folks an alternate that lets them sign up for stuff without hurting themselves in the process and they'll do it. We've had some great services pop-up to help (like temporary email services and bugmenot) but as those become less effective people will do whatever is left to them.
I get those quite often. As far as I've been able to tell, they're typically someone else sharing my first and last name, and they're using a Gmail address without the '.' in my usual first.last@gmail.com address. Gmail doesn't care about the period, so firstlast@gmail.com gets to me as well. And only me... You might think that if trying to access utilities, or apply for a job, you might use an address you can actually receive messages on.
That happens to me too. My suspicion is that the sign ups are happening via telephone and the agent handling the sign up is fucking up the spelling or leaving off the disambiguating elements, digits or whatever.
The ones I come across likely had no human in the process but the one signing up for whatever service. The one that signed up for hydro at least I could "creep" using Street View, see where he lives. ;)
Yeah, usually, though when I tried to sign up to Doordash my account already had someone else's details filled, and even though I corrected them to my details, I could never place an order; Doordash had pre-banned me. Many calls to customer service couldn't fix it, despite promises each time.
Now that I'm aware of this security flaw, I'm not sure whether that instance was incompetence or malice.
I've occasionally let my curiosity take me down the rabbit hole, to see if I can figure what it's all about. In one case, the email reminder about an upcoming job interview gave me enough to call the recruiter, and ask if they have alternate contact means for the interviewee. Apparently yes, there's a phone, so I suggested that they use it to ask them for their real email address.
Also, if someone uses my email to sign up for some site, you know I'll be using the password reset functionality immediately, then checking that site out ASAP.
> Services that allow sign-up without proof of email (eg. by clicking a link in a verification email) ownership are just obnoxious in general.
I actually hate the services that require an email or phone number for no reason... that's one of the good things about reddit and this forum right here.
I have a gmail address that simply represents my name, and tend to get something intended for someone else pretty much daily.