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Ask HN: How to handle services that don't accept valid email addresses?

4 points by jen729w ↗ HN
I recently migrated my email to a .network TLD and am having trouble with about 10% of the sites on which I try to use it.

Most recently was AAMI, an insurance provider. Their form tells me to 'Please enter a valid email address', which of course I've done. It's their aggressive form validation which is causing the problem.

I DM'd them on Twitter, followed up by email (from my perfectly valid email address), and they've told me that "due to the way our system is currently set-up, our online system won't be able to accept the email addresses you wanted to register with".

They suggested that I "use an alternate email address to register for these services", and I've advised them that, instead, I'll be taking my business elsewhere. But I'd rather not have to! I used them in the past, I like everything about them other than this.

Does anyone have any successful strategies for dealing with this sort of thing? It's not like the new TLDs are even that new any more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

8 comments

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JMTQp8lwXL
1. Stick to conventional TLDs. One major drawback of new TLDs is they are often forgotten in utilities that generate links from user input. So it reduces organic traffic to your site.

2. Just don't use these sites. Their loss for being unwilling to support your perfectly valid e-mail address.

jen729w
I don't care about traffic to my domain. I just want to use the email address. I'm already invested now, I'm not going back. Plus that just feels like The Wrong Thing To Do.
JMTQp8lwXL
Get an address on a conventional TLD, then forward the e-mails to your address you want to use.
uberman
I know you feel like they have done you wrong. But .network is not even a blip on the radar. This TLD represents less than 1/10 of 1 percent of all domains. I don't know how little it actually is as it does not even appear on TDL share reporting sites. It could in fact be far less than that.

On the other hand, Internet Explorer 6 still enjoys at LEAST 10x the user base of your TDL.

How much is reasonable for a company to invest to support less than 0.001 of their potential user base?

jen729w
One doesn’t “support” a TLD. One actively un-supports a TLD by way of implementing stupid form validation rules.
uberman
Your "invalid" pattern likely matches less the 1% of their potential customer base. While it would be great if they relaxed their filter, they just as likely as not got it from some open source repo.

Perhaps you could find out what they use and put together a pull request.

jen729w
I got another response from AAMI and they basically said exactly the same.

But when does this end? What's the point in introducing new TLDs if people can't, y'know, use them?

JMTQp8lwXL
People can use them. It will just take time to update all of the code that make assumptions about TLDs. In 5 years, this probably won't be a problem.