SHARED EMAIL ADDRESSES

2024-07-29

EMAIL ANTIPATTERNS

There are two particular varieties of email address that I don't often see,
but I've been known to ridicule when I have:
* Geographically-based personal email addresses, e.g.
OurHouseName@example.com. These always seemed to me to undermine one of the
single-best things about an email address compared to postal mail - that they
don't change when you move house! (The most ill-conceived example of
geographically-based email addresses I've ever seen came from a a 2003
proposal by then-MP Derek Wyatt, who proposed that the domain name part of
every single email address should contain not only the country of the owner
(e.g. .uk) but also their complete postcode. He was under the delusion that
this would somehow prevent spam. Even ignoring the immense technical
challenges of his proposal and the impossibility of policing it across the
borders of every country that uses email... it probably wouldn't even be
effective at his stated goal. I'll let The Register take it from here.)
* Shared/couple email addresses, e.g. MrAndMrsSmith@example.net. These make me
want to scream "You know email addresses are basically free, right? You don't
have to share one!" Even back when most people got their email address
directly from their dial-up provider, most ISPs offered some number of
addresses (e.g. five).

If you've come across either of the above before, there's... perhaps a
reasonable chance that it was in the possession of somebody born before 1960
(and the older, the more-likely) (No ageism intended: I suspect that the
phenomenon actually stems from the fact that as email took off in the
noughties this demographic who were significantly more-likely than younger
folks to have (a) a very long-term home that they didn't anticipate moving out
of any time soon, and (b) an existing anticipation that people and companies
wrote to them as a couple, not individually.).

YOU'LL NEVER CATCH ME DOING THAT!

I found myself thinking about this as I clicked the "No" button on a poll by
Terence Eden that asked whether I used a "shared" email address when in a
stable long-term relationship.

It wasn't until after I clicked "No" that I realised that, in actual fact, I
have had multiple email addresses that I've share with significant other(s).
And more than that, sometimes they've been geographically-based! What's going
on?

I've routinely had domains or subdomains that I've used to represent a place
that I live. They're convenient for when you want to give somebody a short web
address which'll take them to a page with directions to you and links to your
location in a variety of different services and formats.

And by that point, you might as well have an email alias, e.g.
all@myhouse.example.org, that forwards on email to, well, all the adults at
the house. What I've described there is, after a fashion, a shared email
address tied to a geographical location. But we don't ever send anything from
it. Nor do we use it for any kind of personal communication with anybody
outside the house.

We don't give out these all@ addresses (or their aliases: every company gets
their own) to people willy-nilly. But they're useful for shared services that
send automated emails to us all. For example:
* Giving a forwarding alias to the supermarket means that receipts (listing
any unavailable products) g0 to all of us, and whoever's meal plan's been
scuppered by an awkward substitution will know what's up.
* Using a forwarding alias with the household Netflix account means anybody
can use the "send me a sign-in link" feature to connect a new device.
* When confirming that you've sent money to a service provider, CC'ing one of
these nice, short aliases provides a quick way to let the others know that a
bill's been paid (this one's especially useful where, like me, you live in a
3+ adult household and otherwise you'd be having to add multiple people to the
CC field).

Sure, the need for most of these solutions would evaporate instantly if more
services supported multi-user or delegated access (I'd love it if the grocery
delivery sites would let multiple "accounts", by mutual consent, share a
delivery slot, destination, and payment method. It'd be cool to know that we
could e.g. have a houseguest and give them temporary access to a specific
order that was scheduled for during their stay. But that's probably a lot of
work for very little payoff if you're busy running a supermarket.). But
outside of that fantasy world, shared aliases seem to be pretty useful!

LINKS

A 2003 proposal

Derek Wyatt

I'll let The Register take it from here

Poll

Terence Eden

Raspberry Peelers