Wait, what you're describing sounds like Gmail working exactly as documented. If I understand correctly, your name is something like John P. Smith, and there is

Wait, what you're describing sounds like Gmail working exactly as documented. If I understand correctly, your name is something like John P. Smith, and there is also someone named John Psmith. You own john.p.smith@gmail.com, which means you also own every variation of that address created by adding or removing dots, such as johnpsmith@gmail.com or jo.hnps.mith@gmail.com. This of course includes john.psmith@gmail.com. It is entirely yours, and nobody else can have it. If someone gives it out as their own address, they are simply confused. I registered my Gmail account very shortly after the invite-only public beta began, so my Gmail username is simply my first name (in this example, it would be john@gmail.com). Believe me, I know a thing or two about confused people giving out email addresses that don't belong to them. Importantly, the dot-normalization rule was there from the very beginning. You learned about it alongside all the other kooky ways Google had decided to reimagine email, including 1 GB of storage, conversation threading, and an interface with a prominent "Archive" button but no visible "Delete" button.