Test Retreat

Gmail And Dots

This week I was on the phone with my insurer. It was Saturday and I had to say my name, my address, my birthday and my bank account to identify me as me. I asked insurer in future to contact me via e-mail because during workday I mostly cannot answer the phone, because I work as a trainer with full class of students.

• she: please spell your email address
• me: kristine dot <rest of my gmail address>
• she: your phone number
• me: we are on the phone right now, you know my phone number
• she: sorry, I have to register this kind of information. this is for Saturday calls only.
• me: ….. +49 <numbers>
• she: do you have a dot in your email address? is there any capitals?
• me: (i spelled it and you did not listen) it is gmail address, it does not matter. And email addresses are not case sensitive.
• she: no, you are wrong, it matters!

I almost forgot about this conversation, but today got reminded by Netflix scam story. I wrote a year ago how handy it is that Gmail finally decided to ignore the dot and sell it as a feature. I was thinking as a tester, not as a user. But James is right, Google never informed me that I have infinite set of email addresses. If users does not know, and services, who collect my email address does not know it, then we are back to: it’s a bug not a feature! again.

As a tester I will keep using Gmail dot ignorance feature, but as a user I will pay more attention and write a mental note to myself about possible misuse.