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How about if you monetised it by phishing, pretending to actually be gmail.com?

How about punching a policeman, instead, and cut down on the time until you are transferred to a cell?

The DOJ only prosecutes a few hundred of these cases per year. You'd need to do a lot of phishing, or something special in order to get their attention, I suspect.

There's nothing wrong with receiving emails.

I don't think it's actually illegal to do that. Just a bit morally off.

Just receiving e-mails would hardly be a way to "monetize it by phishing".

You could probably just redirect all emails to @gmail.com, and most users would be none the wiser. Then you'd be able to trivially do password resets on any accounts that were created with the typo domain.

Or just sell the emails to unsavory people.

They were sent to you, you have a right to sell them (so long as you're in a one-party-consent state when it comes to recording). You're up to snuff law-wise.

Definetly a shady thing to do.

What does phishing have to do with receiving emails?

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