For security reasons

Babalugats , 2 months ago

I haven't ever used it, never signed a petition, but isn't change.org only about petitions?
I can kinda see their reasoning.. They may even have had their hand forced to do it.

Loads of people who want their way probably signed up with tons of accounts to skew the results. If it's going to work, I guess they need to be able to show that they're legit, out at least that change.org are doing their best to make it that they are.

It's easy to set up one gmail account for example and use it a million times with moving a dot throughout the name or putting a plus sign and anything after the username but before the @ symbol.

cosmicrookie OP , 2 months ago

They still require you to confirm the email by clicking a link sent to that email, although someone mentioned that this may be an option to the creator of the petition

I do understand the requirement of not using . or + but blocking mail@ info@ seems too extreme to me.

Appoxo , 2 months ago

Can be automated. Creating a new e-mail account is more annoying.

Siethron , 2 months ago

Automailers often have names like that i.e. noreplymail@companyname.com so it may be more about stopping spam or stopping people from using spam email accounts.

dubyakay , 2 months ago

That sounds like nonsense.

tal , 2 months ago

But you can't use emails starting with mail@, admin@, support@, info@, main@, etc.

If it's exactly stuff like "mail@", many mail systems will redirect stuff with a plus suffix to your main mailbox, like "mail+changeorg@". That might be okay.

davidgro , 2 months ago

The image says they also exclude + and -.

desmosthenes , 2 months ago

they want the DMARC ><

Kolanaki , 2 months ago

If you own the domain being used, I assume you also host your own email... You can't just make a new address for this and have them all forwarded to your actual email?

"This_is_not_generic" @ "your actual name"

Unless they block that too, I don't think they're trying to force those services on you; they're just popular options and this is an automated response sent by an automated process that only checks the first half of the email and not the domain.

SomeoneSomewhere , 2 months ago

It's pretty common to own a domain but not actually host the email server; doing on-premises email is a security PITA and most providers simply blacklist large swathes of residential and leasable (e.g. VPS) IPs.

Unfortunately, if you get someone else to host your email, they often charge by the account, not by the domain. Setting up a new mailbox is therefore irritatingly expensive.

A catch-all email works well, though, and is free from most of the hosting providers. Downside is you get spam...

Jane@JaneDoe certainly seems more common than mail@JaneDoe.

Damage , 2 months ago

Aliases also exist, that's what I use.

My main e-mail Is name@surname.tld

bdonvr , 2 months ago

Check out PurelyMail - only charges by emails sent/received and storage. No limits on accounts or domains connected.

cley_faye , 2 months ago

Ah, change.org. I remember when they said "you can sign a petition without an account, just a mail validation", immediately followed by "if you don't create an account, the validation link in the mail will not work, fuck you".

Guess they didn't really want people to engage.

Rentlar , 2 months ago

As others have said, I'd suggest either:

• enabling a catchall address (which will redirect to anything@yourdomain.com --> spam@yourdomain.com)
• creating an alias: something@yourdomain.com --> mail@yourdomain.com

Both are done on your server/hosting side.

blindbunny , 2 months ago

So which corpo monitored email address did you end up going with?

YaksDC , 2 months ago

I create a new alias account on my email server for each new account. That way when I am done with them I can just delete it and never get their spam ever.

cerement , 2 months ago

abuse@website-im-visiting.com probably wouldn’t work as well …

ziviz , 2 months ago

Had something similar happen with indiegala. Had an account with them for years, then one day, could not purchase some games randomly. Hit up their support and got the answer "Oh, the purchase was denied because your account's email address is detected as a temporary email address".... The email address I've been using on that account... for years.... Is temporary.

MrJameGumb , 2 months ago

Could you not just make a second email account that you just use for things like this? Why is the only alternative to use your personal account? It takes like 2 minutes to make an alternate Gmail account lol

ReverendIrreverence , 2 months ago

From the end user standpoint...my interest in reading about much less signing this petition just plummeted

DeltaTangoLima , 2 months ago

Please use a personal email. My email is ‘mail’ @ ‘my actual name’. It does not get more personal than that

It's a legit rule they're enforcing, IMO. Generic email addresses are usually unmonitored mailboxes that don't bounce. Easy to use if you're spamming contact forms and stuff like that.

Instead they advised me (3 times) to create a personal email on a service like Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, Orange, etc

I think this is more a boilerplate suggestion, to lower the barrier to entry for people. Gotta remember, those of us that host our own email and/or use our own personal domains are definitely in the minority.

kashifshah , 2 months ago

lol “security” in this case is probably more like expediency in trying to solve a spam problem

teletext , 2 months ago

Yes, so they don't become a spam proxy filling up RFC 2142 address names.

kashifshah , 2 months ago

Security ain’t free.

jordanlund , 2 months ago

If your domain is your actual name, then it should be trivial to create an SMTP alias for mail@domain.com that is for yourname@domain.com.

Attach that to your email address and inbound email for either will get to you, but only your primary address will be used for outbound communication.

Another fun one...

Gmail ignores periods in addresses.

So firstnamelastname@gmail.com also gets email for:

firstname.lastname@gmail.com
first.name.last.name@gmail.com

Or any combination...

f.i.r.s.t.n.a.m.e.l.a.s.t.n.a.m.e@gmail.com