Strange gmail bug: I'm sharing an email address with a stranger

Dont bother Steve. You are right. I have the EXACT same issue. I had a very early account. I added a dot between my first/last name @gmail and sure enough, I seem to get maybe 10-15% emails from the other person with the email as mine w/o the dot.

I've search and searched and Google will just keep denying this is a bug. It worries me b/c my doppelganger uses the same email to sign in to FB, so sometimes I receive his FB stuff too. The only way is to ask a Gmail engineer from the early days.

My gut feeling is - at some point the dot did make a difference, then it was decided that it didn't, but some accounts were "grandfathered" in. However, in practical terms you will see someone else's emails and chances are they are looking at yours too. Stupid gmail. This has NEVER happened to me in Hotmail. Any HN member that can contact a flesh & blood person managing Gmail may shed some light in here.

I've seen a request to merge duplicate gmail addresses before... but only once. Someone in our office created a Google account with our work domain and we then later started using Google Apps (created same). Google requested a purge/merge. Really weird.