From: Zach White Date: 02:38 on 04 Oct 2006 Subject: Websites that require a username I had a long rant typed out here about the USPS, and their use of logins to do something as simple as print a label and buy postage for the package at the same time. The rant didn't read very well, and boiled down to this: YOU DON'T NEED ME TO COME UP WITH A UNIQUE LOGIN NAME. For years now I've put up with seemingly every website I attempt to use, buy something from, or in some way have to identify myself to, requiring me to come up with a unique login to use with their site. If the site is at all popular the two logins I use everywhere and can actually remember are probably already taken. We already have something that can uniquely identify someone, and these sites already require users to give it to them. What's that, you ask? Why it's an email address. You know what else is great about email addresses? They're globally unique. You already limit people from signing up with multiple accounts using the same email address, why make them come up with another unique string that they aren't going to remember? I've had it. I will no longer register at a site that doesn't use my email address to identify me, unless there's a good reason for it. I won't be able to remember my login, and likely your system for digging it up will not work. -Zach (Who ended up ranting anyway, but at least this time it's readable.)
From: David King Date: 17:16 on 05 Oct 2006 Subject: Re: Websites that require a username > We already have something that can uniquely identify someone, and > these > sites already require users to give it to them. What's that, you > ask? Why > it's an email address. Sure, an email address has one person, but a person can have many email addresses, and a person occasionally gains and loses email addresses. I once tried to order something from a site that used email addresses for its unique identifier. When I told it my credit card number it said that there was already an account on file with that credit cart number. I guess I'd ordered from them before, and they didn't want more than one account to use a given credit card (the sanity of this point is as questionable as their retaining my credit card number when I *never* tick any box asking to keep my payment information in file, and explicitly *untick* any similar boxes). I tried a different credit card and it made the same complaint of my shipping address, saying that that name and address already had an account as well. The problem was, I couldn't remember which email address I was using when I ordered from them the first time. If I had ordered from them, it must have been at least two employers ago, and since I usually use myaddress+merchantname@xxx.xxx, but sometimes I don't (depending on how spammy I believe that merchant may be), this means that I had a large number of permutations of address, domain, various ways of specifying the merchant name, and possible passwords to go through. Since none of my current email addresses worked in the "I forgot my password, please email it to me" form, I eventually decided that they didn't want my money in exchange for goods and/or services, and left.
From: Juerd Date: 20:30 on 05 Oct 2006 Subject: Re: Websites that require a username David King skribis 2006-10-05 9:16 (-0700): > Sure, an email address has one person An email address can have multiple persons. In organized form this is called a mailing list, but it also exists in non-organized form. Then it's often just an alias pointing to multiple other addresses.
From: Patrick Quinn-Graham Date: 22:18 on 05 Oct 2006 Subject: Re: Websites that require a username On 5-Oct-06, at 9:16 AM, David King wrote: >> We already have something that can uniquely identify someone, and >> these >> sites already require users to give it to them. What's that, you >> ask? Why >> it's an email address. > > Sure, an email address has one person, but a person can have many > email addresses, and a person occasionally gains and loses email > addresses. Funnily enough the "one email address == one person" is also not always true. I know plenty of people who have a home email address that they share. Now the number of those where they both want to sign up for the same site/service might not be that high. but it seems crazy to impose limits like that. > Since none of my current email addresses worked in the "I forgot my > password, please email it to me" form, I eventually decided that > they didn't want my money in exchange for goods and/or services, > and left. A problem I've had a few times since coming to Canada (and being here only for 6 months so far, don't have a Canadian credit card, only my New Zealand ones) of online retailers not wanting my money*. I find it very satisfying to email them and explain that while sadly they don't want my money, someone else does. So they can have it. * not technically a software hate - the card will authorise, delivery & statement address are the same (both in Canada), but then will get an email a day or so later saying "Oh, that's not a North American card. We don't want your money. Please go away."
From: David Cantrell Date: 11:57 on 06 Oct 2006 Subject: Re: Websites that require a username On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:16:48AM -0700, David King wrote: > >We already have something that can uniquely identify someone, and > >these > >sites already require users to give it to them. What's that, you > >ask? Why > >it's an email address. > Sure, an email address has one person, but a person can have many > email addresses, and a person occasionally gains and loses email > addresses. Actually an email address does *not* have one person. It might explode out to several peoples' mailboxes, or it might be one mailbox shared by several people - such as jandjsmith@xxxxxxx.xxx, shared by Mr John and Mrs Jane Smith.
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