Why A New Google Account?
Why retire my existing Google Account?#
I’ve had my existing Google account since July of 2004 when I managed to snag an account on the then-beta GMail service and I’ve used it primarily for corporate interactions, such as login info to a retail web site, communication with my bank, airline reservations and so on and so on. For friends and family, I have a separate provider, FastMail.
As Google expanded their services offerings, I’ve been making use of them as I see fit:
- Google Authenticator
- Google Contacts & Calendar[1]
- Google Drive
- Google Keep
- Google Photos
These have served me well and I will continue to keep using them as I find value using them. My main issue is with my GMail account.
What’s wrong with GMail?#
So, what happens when you use an email account for over 20 years to sign up for retail newsletters, political donation campaigns, and various businesses out there?
You guessed it. SPAM! Lotsa SPAM! SPAM, EGG, SPAM, SPAM, BACON AND SPAM!
Now Google does do an excellent job of filtering out most spam, such as the usual dietary supplicants and offers from third world princes I didn’t know I was related to asking me to launder their money for them. But, some stuff gets through. I continue to have to block email from insurance companies I’ve never heard of and get flooded with political advertising from all across the country come election season.
Another problem. My Google email address is the first letter of my first name followed by my last name[2]. This email address has also wended it’s way onto the dark web. This means people have been using my email address to sign up for services. I regularly get invoices for a CostCo credit card, reminders about Doctor appointments, advertisements for housing, and getting on email lists for people with my last name (distant relatives?). I’ve seen email addressed to Clarissa, Charles, Chuck, Clarity, you name it[3].
I once got a legitimate itinerary reminder from an airline about a flight going from one city I used to live in to another city I used to live in. This was flat out addressed to “Christopher”. I wound up having to call the reservations desk of the airline to let them know what was going on. I also locked down my Facebook after that.
To be blunt, this is getting to be unmanageable.
In a future post, I’ll outline my plan for reorganizing email to better manage corporate/commercial correspondence.
Footnotes:
[1] I’ve since moved these over to FastMail.
[2] Yes, it’s cfuhrman atta gee mail dotta com.
[3] The moral of this story is don’t use first letter of first name followed by last name as your email address.