[prlambert]

Yes, since 2017 no Gmail data is used for any Ad targeting, across any part of Google. Here's a NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html

Unfortunately this goes against people's default (and incorrect) mental model of how Google operates, so it's been a very hard message to land.

Disclosure: Current Googler and I was a PM on Gmail at the time.

[JohnFen]

The message doesn't really land with me because it's so specific. Not using collected data for "ad targeting" leaves a LOT of room for uses of the data that I object to, including marketing purposes that don't happen to be ad targeting.

[ssss11]

Maybe it goes against their mental model because Gmail did it for over 10 years and already broke the trust regular people placed in them.

[pelorat]

That's good because my mailbox is filled with mail from other people. I signed up to gmail on day one using the x.lastname(at)gmail.com address format. Before dot meant "alias".

However I now get email from various people around the world with xlastname(at)gmail.com addresses. Apparently your email is not unique in the world, but only in your region, kind of (?!).

I get important emails (hotel bookings, insurance mails, trip reservations, orders, lawyer documents) from people which use xlastname(at)gmail.com in the USA, Canada, Australia, and Europe. All with similar names to me, obviously the surname is the same, but first name is different, just the same initial.

I've confirmed (by contacting some of them) that they are not missing out on any important documents. For some reason Google's system is duplicating emails meant for other people into my mailbox.

Only mails using x.lastname reaches MY inbox. If I tell someone I know to send a mail to xlastname I wont receive it, making the statement here...

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313

...false (for me).

I guess I'm God over all the non dotted versions of my email address. Thanks Google!

(However sometimes I wonder if other people see my emails as well)

[scottlamb]

> However I now get email from various people around the world with xlastname(at)gmail.com addresses. Apparently your email is not unique in the world, but only in your region, kind of (?!).

No, it's globally unique. I worked on this system for years. When it looks up an email address, it first looks in a globally consistent database [1] for an email record keyed by "canonicalized" address, with dots stripped out, everything in lowercase, and certain letter/number combinations replaced that are too similar like '1'->'l'. So if you sign up with x.lastname(at)gmail.com, no one else in the world can have xlastname(at)gmail.com, x1astname(at)gmail.com, xl.astname(at)gmail.com, etc. Part of this record's value is the original email address with the 'l's and '1's how you chose them. If those don't match the query, the system returns not found, just as it would if there were no record for the canonicalized form.

> I've confirmed (by contacting some of them) that they are not missing out on any important documents. For some reason Google's system is duplicating emails meant for other people into my mailbox.

I'd be _shocked_ if that were true. It'd be a very serious privacy incident and is contrary to my understanding of the system. Far more likely it's what I've seen with my own email addresses. Someone else incorrectly writes your email address instead of theirs into some system. Usually you're the only person who gets the email, but they might send something to two addresses, or they could even set up a forwarding rule from an address they have to an address they incorrectly think they have. They may say they're not missing any important documents, but maybe they have the documents in another system and don't know they're supposed to have gotten an email copy also. Or maybe they don't know what they're missing and don't understand what you're saying. This group of people was not selected for tech savviness. They might have just made a typo once, or they might keep doing this because they don't understand email at all.

> Only mails using x.lastname reaches MY inbox. If I tell someone I know to send a mail to xlastname I wont receive it, making the statement here... https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313 ...false (for me).

That's odd. You can write to support if this is a problem. Support tickets actually reach engineers when necessary (yes, even for free gmail.com users).

It seems vaguely possible given the age of your account that your email record state and the current code are inconsistent in some way, like the field that stores your email address with the 'l's and '1's in your preferred form actually having the dot when it's not supposed to or some such. If there is such an inconsistency, one of my former teammates will fix the code or the database state (running a cleanup that finds all affected records) so they're consistent.

Or maybe the xlastname ones are just ending up in your spam folder. /shruggie

[1] old but: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.133...

[jackac]

Periods are ignored by gmail.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

[Infernal]

I have [e-mail], and I routinely get [e-mail] mail intended for what is obviously two different people. I have no idea what their real email addresses are of course, but I've contacted both of them on Facebook and tried to explain that [e-mail] is my email address, not theirs - neither replied, both continue to use it for tons of sensitive stuff. I don't understand why they haven't noticed the lack of critical, sometimes personal, email. It's bizarre.

[handrous]

I have a first-initial-lastname gmail address and receive more email for people with same-first-initial-lastname than I do actually for myself. One of them likes to go to expensive hotels somewhat often. I get the receipts. It's weird.

[jacquesm]

Trust once broken is next to impossible to restore. Besides that there is no way to verify this for outsiders, so you may as well assume that it is done because there is money in it. Google lost the moral high ground in these discussions long ago.