Gmail query

[Scott]

Someone sent me an (important) email to one of my Gmail addresses that I have not publicised. How did he obtain this? I would like to amend or delete. Thanks

[Martin Brown]

You must have used it to communicate with them at some point. How else would they know that it was you? gmail is a big place!

Reply asking them to delete that address and substitute whatever address you would like them to use for important communications in future.

I doubt that they read Usenet.

[Scott]

Thanks. I wondered if his GMail could communicate with my GMail if were were both contacts and we have communicated by text.

Done.

For sure.

[Martin Brown]

That is probably enough for his gmail client to be able to find your gmail email address if that phone number is registered to it.

My common name meant that in the old days I used to get emails for other Martin Browns. We would each forward the others mail when this happened (back in the early Compuserve days there were just 12 of us online worldwide but that was already enough to sow confusion).

[Chris B]

One way that one of my less public addresses "escaped" was when I used the "share" by gmail link on some item (cant remember what web page or youtube or similar). For some reason the gmail address opened up by the share button was one of my less public ones and I did not notice until after the message had been sent. Hence the recipient got an email from me from an address they didn't recognise.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Have you read their terms and conditions? Often these issues occur due to other people who you send email to from that account have your address in their address book when they reply to you, so when somebody does a reply to more than one person they us CC instead of bcc and then the other person also gets your address in their address book, its a bit like a tree with branches. Of course if you have e very used that email address to subscribe to anything at all it can be on many lists due to the net crawling harvesting that goes on, and indeed the use of cookies beacons and trackers its almost impossible to keep them secret. I have to say I tend to keep a black list of people or companies who have don't this and deep 6 any email automatically, so when they never hear back they eventually get the message. Brian

[Mark Carver]

The most effective way not to let your email address become publicised, is never to send an email.

[Chris Green]

A bit like never telling anyone your phone number, it reduces unwanted calls but does make your phone rather less useful! :-)

[Brian Gaff]

Yes but of course if its in your address book, say on the Iphone and you have Alexa, your contacts are shared, if you opt for the ability to allow it for telephone calls via alexa. Nothing these days is really private, but then was it ever? I remember newsgroups like this could be posted to using annon servers who claimed not to store you original web address or sending email via mailtonews systems. What happened? The main one in Norway was 'asked' to provide trace data and were forced to do so and ceased to exist soon afterwards due to it not being very much good being an annon if it could be discovered. At the moment I suppose you have what is termed te dark web, which is in reality a number of web sites and resources which do not have a domain name or a listing but these need to be altered to stop detection but most are full of criminals trading stolen credit cards. Elections are annon you say? Well no they never have been at the start for some time everyone can be traced, The tracing link info is only destroyed when it is known that doctoring went on.

There a lot of dishonest people about. Brian

[alan_m]

With emails I have half a dozen active accounts. One account I limit where it is used so attracts zero spam.

[Scott]

Me too, but my concern is if Google automatically disseminates my GMail address and someone then uses it instead of my preferred are monitored email addess and I lose track of the email. .

[Chris Green]

I find it much simpler to have only one E-Mail address and deal with the (fairly small) amount of spam that attracts.

[John Rumm]

You can configure gmail to deliver from your own address by default if you want.

[Andy Burns]

I thought they switched to some sort of kludgy

"sent by [e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]"

[John Rumm]

One quirk of gmail addresses you can exploit to create multiple unique addresses is with the use of dots in the address.

So fredblogs@ and fred.blogs@ and f.red.b.lo.gs@ are all treated by gmail as the same and delivered to to one mailbox, but to the outside world will be treated as unique addresses.

[John Rumm]

It does not appear to on mine. If you look at the header there is an X-SPF record that includes a envelope-from= section that identifies the actual gmail account name, but to a normal reader of the email there is no obvious indication.

When I look at settings, then go to "see all settings". Accounts and Import tab, Send mail as: section I have the option to add addresses, and also set the default address. You need to verify you own the alternate from address when you add it.

(it might be that the results depend on how you set it up, and perhaps also on *when* you set it up)

[C Mercadal]

That is a great tip.

Also, for anyone for who runs out of enough permutations of dots, there's also the + trick: fredblogs+usenet@ fredblogs+randomOnlineRegistration@ fredblogs+whatever@ ...

Helpful for building unique addresses when registering for new accounts/etc. online.