this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Privacy

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Proton is considering recycling old email addresses that still receive misdirected mail and appear in breach data, raising serious privacy concerns.

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[–] popcar2@programming.dev 52 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What a stupid, nothingburger article.

The company is considering releasing millions of old email addresses that were originally created by bots in its early years. These accounts were disabled almost immediately, but the addresses lived on. [...] The problem is that many of these addresses are extremely common.

So what? The author rambles about the horrors of getting emails from people who have accidentally written in a generic email handle. It's not a huge deal. Tons of people using other email services like Outlook and Gmail also have generic usernames, it's a user's choice on whether to get one or not. These are old bot accounts that have been disabled for almost a decade, so it's not like somebody would send emails assuming it was the old person using the handle.

Proton says it wants community feedback, which is good, but the fact that it is even considering such a reckless idea makes me question the company’s judgment.

"I'm mad that the company is surveying their community", great argument.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I have never heard of an email provider that will hold your address for you forever, paid or free. This post makes no sense.

[–] Dionysus@leminal.space 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's how Gmail worked. Things never got released, once a username is taken I'm it's gone.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago
[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts from the late 90s are still good and I don't touch them but maybe once every year or two.