Uneasy Rhetoric

I know, I know. Gmail is still in beta and we should expect it to be buggy. But this is a big problem that, as far as I can tell from their help system, they’ve simply glossed over.

According to my extensive email archive, I signed up for Gmail on April 14, 2004, just 14 days after Google announced its launch. When I signed up, I chose the following user name:

firstname.lastname at gmail dot com

Note the period between the first name and the last name. Given that I have a very common first/last name combination, I was ecstatic to get this. Little did I know I would start getting someone else’s email.

According to the Gmail help system:

Gmail doesn’t recognize dots (.) as characters within a username. This way, you can add and remove dots to your username for desired address variations. For example, messages sent to GoogleAmy@gmail.com and Google.Amy@gmail.com are delivered to the same inbox.

In other words, firstname.lastname and firstnamelastname are, according to Gmail the same username, right? If I registered for firstname.lastname at gmail.com, then firstnamelastname at gmail.com should not have been available, right?

Wrong.

Someone else registered firstnamelastname at gmail.com and now I’m getting his email. I don’t think I’m getting all of it, but I’m getting enough to be concerned. I don’t know if he is also getting any of mine (thankfully, I’m not using Gmail as my primary account, so private email isn’t going there). Since, according to Google, firstname.lastname and firstnamelastname are the same user name, this means that Gmail has allowed two different people to register the “same” email address.

The fix is simple: make periods a recognized character in usernames. Gmail users who created a username with a period in it (like me) are already required to use the period when logging in. In other words, I can’t log in as firstnamelastname, only as firstname.lastname. I may be getting some of the other guy’s email, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to know I can’t log in to his account. Sounds like they’re already half way to my solution.

I’ve reported this “bug” to Gmail, but I suspect they’ve already fixed it moving forward. Those of us who registered early on are just screwed.