Thursday, November 3, 2022

Facebook, email addresses, and insecurity

Someplace else (and, right now, I can't recall where) I have written about the fact that an awful lot of people think they own the email address rslade@gmail.com.  There's a Roger, there's a Richard, there's a Rachel, there's a guy in Hawaii who owns a Toyota, there is someone wanting a divorce in England, there are many people who have signed up for mailing lists for many things, or given, as their contact email address, rslade@gmail.com.  They, of course, don't get any of the email they signed up for.  It all comes to me.

Somebody signed up for Facebook with that email address.  Somehow, Facebook believed him.  With the result that although I have a number of email addresses that I can use to access Facebook, I cannot add that address to my list of addresses on Facebook.

On the other hand, I *can* use that address to log on to Facebook.  And it logs me on to my account.  Which, if they have allowed someone *else* to use that address to verify or create an account, is terminally weird ...

1 comment:

  1. Odd... and yet familiar. I'm "tim.lavoie", but get all of the various "timlavoie" emails from that same email provider. I have no idea what people think they're doing when they sign up for some service with an email address that will never work for them. I've had chats with recruiters trying to hire the other person, utilities, health-care providers, and so on. All in the US so far, and not aligning with this chunk of the Canadian coast.

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