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Ask HN: name@a.com and name+1@a.com should be considered 2 different accounts?

6 points by mcs_ ↗ HN
assuming your websites has a sign-up and you provide some free credit/usage for each new sign ups.

In gmail and GSuite accounts (not sure if other email services does the same) you can do the +1 trick.

Add +N after your username and receive the email in the same sandbox (which is actually useful in many cases).

The point is, knowing that, do you consider

user@gmail user+1@gmail user+2@gmail user+3@gmail user+4@gmail user+5@gmail

as 6 different and unrelated accounts in your db?

it is fair to _regex_ the email and remove the +1 trick?

2 comments

[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 16.6 ms ] thread
edoceo
The address extension is not always a + symbol.

The . in a Gmail user is a NOOP.

I treat them all as unique

comboy
You should treat them as unique, Google is not the only e-mail provider.

You can use that knowledge in constructing your anti-spam heuristics though.