Ask HN: Gmail Post Mortem Request

4 points by genter 2y ago ↗ HN

So I just got a weird email from postmortemrequests@google.com to my gmail account. Basically it says Google has received a request for the email content of my account. I have 3 weeks to respond to prevent this from happening. I can't believe this is even a thing. What if I didn't see this, or was on a multiweek backpacking trip (which I have done). Probably related, I renewed my domain name a couple of hours before.

Is this legit? It says it came from a google.com email, I'm pretty sure it's no longer possible to forge the sender of an email.

4 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 20.6 ms ] thread

petee 2y ago ↗

I think you'd have to check the email headers, the sender can still be spoofed

Edit: on second thought, I don't know how Google handles their own domain-as-sender

genter 2y ago ↗

I'm trying to figure out how to do that, I only use the default mail app on an un-jailbroken iPhone for security.

petee 2y ago ↗

I think you can only do it from a desktop, or desktop-mode in gmail, should be a submenu on the message.

A quick search did bring up that email in a few court cases, so short of being spoofed it probably is in fact google. A couple of the cases involved deceased people, so someone might have claimed you died...Getting a lawyer would probably be safe; sorry and good luck!

dekhn 2y ago ↗

I can't say whether your specific email is legit, but I do see chat forums online discussing being able to submit postmortem requests to Google (using that terminology).

If I read it correctly somebody would have had to send a request to Google and convince them to hand things over (say, with some legal documentation).