Why do I get so many Gmail emails to my google account that aren't for me?

19 Jun, 2014

So, I have had firstname.lastname@gmail.com for many years. Maybe as early as 2004 or 2005, I can't remember. For the last few I've been receiving random emails addressed to my address but aren't for me.

There's some from a college in the US, a guy in Western Australia and someone in Essex who routinely give my email address when asked for theirs. Someone sent the guy in the UK bank details in plain text. Overall, it's more amusing that annoying but it can get frustrating. Today I received emails from Sprint eBilling and a random UK webhost thanking me for my business.

This week, I think I solved it. I think that Google's regional email domains for Gmail aren't equivalent from what I can tell, so firstname.lastname@gmail.com isn't the same as firstname.lastname@gmail.com.au or firstname.lastname@gmail.co.uk. Doesn't explain the guy in the US, but it fits pretty well. I should probably email those accounts and see if I can get a response. I'm not sure how this works with @googlemail.co.uk etc that was in use in the UK for a few years.

Not nearly as bad as the guy in Canada who used one of my domains as his administration contact within the whois for many of his domains. The amount of emails I received from GoDaddy was insane.

#Technology