Blogger Accounts, And Non Existent Email Addresses, Redux

Every now and then, I become motivated to repeat a previous experiment. Blogger has been known to change their code, occasionally, so in some cases, that would seem to be a good idea. In one case, one very anxious blogger asked

We are a school system and federal law requires us to archive all email. Therefore all external accounts are blocked. Staff and students can not use gmail, yahoo, AOL or any outside email. Only email provided by the school. The delimma is that you require one of these email addresses in order to post. We do not want an anonymous post option and do want to have valid discussions on curriculum, reporting etc.

As usual, I jumped right in, with

You can use any email address, for a Blogger account.

then I had second thoughts.

Might Blogger have changed their code? As the blogger implies, are they now verifying non GMail email addresses? I have, personally, asked them to do that, several times, to reduce the volume of folks who report

I forgot my password. And the email address associated with the account is bogus. How do I get a password reset?? Help!!!

Is Blogger taking action?


Doesn't look like any changes have been made ...



Nope. LOL.



"whackywhack@whackwhack.com" <-- Hey spammers, scrape this!

So, what's interesting about this?

Apparently, you can have any account name that you wish, with 3 limitations.

1. It must be of the form "xxxxxxx@yyyyyy.zzz".
2. "yyyyyy.zzz" may not be "gmail.com".
3. "xxxxxxx@yyyyyy.zzz" must not be already assigned, as a Google account name.

Now, I will be facetious. Maybe these are details which you, the reader, don't consider important. The implied purpose of using an email address as an account name is three fold.

1. The syntax of the account name is valid, if of the form "xxxxxxx@yyyyyy.zzz".
2. The uniqueness of the name is predetermined, by the domain "yyyyyy.zzz" having issued that mailbox "xxxxxxx" to someone. Google does not have to do uniqueness verification, when setting up a new Google account.
3. The mailbox "xxxxxxx@yyyyyy.zzz" exists, and is used by the owner. One day, when the owner forgets his / her password, a password reset request is emailed to that address, for execution by the owner, which is, presumably, the owner of the Google account.

The above 3 details are valid for you, if and only if you own and can use the email address "xxxxxxx@yyyyyy.zzz".

Now, for those of you that like to overlook my whimsical writings have not yet figured out, I do not have an email account "whackywhack@whackwhack.com". I have no idea if "whackwhack.com" exists, nor if the domain admin has already, or will ever in the future, setup mailbox "whackywhack". Regardless of those minor details, I now own Google account "whackywhack@whackwhack.com". And, if I ever forget what password I assigned to my Google account, I will be out of luck. I will become one of the hundreds posting in Blogger Help Forum

Help! I forgot my password, and I can't use my email account!! Somebody do something!!! I can't post to my blog today, and I NEED IT!!!! Help Me!!!!!

And if your Blogger / Google account is based on a non GMail email address, do us both a huge favour - verify (and correct, if necessary) the address, today. Do this before you forget the password.

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