Fake Names and emails

[Jim Barrett]

Personally, I find it a major pain to have to go from one screen to then open my e-mail and wait for the message to appear, and then read and click and then go back to the screen I wanted to be working on.

Yes, some programs do that -- and I hate it when they do. I think there are way more important things for Family Tree DNA to be focusing on.

As I said before, FTDNA needs to work on real problems!

[Jim Barrett]

Hi Jim,

No, of course not.

The email validation would only take place when the customer initiates an email address change in their account.

Currently, customers can just change their email address to whatever they want, even an address that's completely bogus and doesn't exist.

Many other websites require users to validate their new email address when they try to change the address in their account. This is done by sending an email with a validation link to the new address. If the link is clicked, the new email address is validated and saved in the account. If the link doesn't get clicked, then the address change doesn't take place.

If FTDNA did this type of validation, it would at least prevent customers from deliberately providing an invalid address or from changing to an accidentally typo'd email address.

This would also benefit Family Tree DNA's email system. When the system sends out match notifications or other emails, if there are a bunch of invalid addresses, the system gets back a ton of bounces. Bouncing email addresses are placed on a block list to prevent the system from constantly emailing the same invalid addresses. However, I would think there would be technical benefits to reducing the number of bouncing/blocked customer emails.

Anyway, these are just my own personal thoughts. I'm not officially speaking on behalf of Family Tree DNA here

Elise

I agree with all of this but what is the difference in providing a fake address and discontinuing a verified address. Both will cause bouncing e-mail. I thought the original problem was the fact that we couldn't contact a match, not that FTDNA's e-mails bounced. Having a verified e-mail address doesn't solve this problem.

I don't care how much time and money FTDNA spends. They can't make a customer reply to messages we send to matches if they don't want to reply. I wish every match would have a real name, a valid e-mail address and that they would reply to our messages, BUT THEY DON'T.

[keigh]

bouncing ball e-mail

Of course there is always the person that decides that they are no longer interested or have the time to spend on what's become a passing interest and sends FTDNA to their spam filter.

Oh, the pain, in becoming spam.