Using icloud.com domain for legit and hidden adresses is such a typical Apple strategy of holding their own users and "others" (ie. other web services, other users etc) hostage simultaneously. But at least here it is actually a good reason that works for the user.
Anyone have a theory why this even made it to this point? the switch was such obviously a bad idea. just corporate weirdness that no one there bothered to raise their hand and be like "uh, are we really doing this?" or was there a story here that anyone knows about?
Because the bounce rate of Hide My Email addresses being deliverable is going to rise over time, by design.
Whenever I start getting spam at an address that's been leaked, I deactivate it. I've done the same with my oldest gmail account, but the work required there is notably higher.
If they were moved to plain old icloud.com, I could absolutely see a bunch of companies starting to filter out all icloud.com email addresses to avoid private relay. Either just because they’re jerks or from bounce issues.
Keeping it on a subdomain fixes that problem, to some degree. If the user is named ffjvhtu57325cjdjvg501a2@icloud.com no one is going to think that’s a real address. It’s very obviously a private one. So it’s not like they were “camouflaged.“
It’s a little odd they’re switching the subdomain though.
Like for my usage there are no bounce issues with the ~400 legitimate providers that I have Hide My Email addresses from. The only ones with bounce issues are the spammers who've acquired leaked addresses that I've deactivated.
Maybe hidemyemail allows easily creating many accounts on a site. And some big site didn't like it.
The "Sign-up via Apple" button and creating an iCloud email yourself have a slightly higher barrier than creating a new throwaway hidemyemail email (1 API call w/o captcha/phone verification or whatever).
We might find out later this year if some site starts blocking @icloud.com but keeps allowing @private.icloud.com.
Hmm it’s almost as if people are paying good money for iCloud+ or something. They aren’t google and shouldn’t be retiring their services as if they’re giving them away for free
Maybe it's because I live in a country where e-mai isn't really used that much for personal communication, but wouldn't this mainly be a gmail issue? If mails I wanted ended up in the spam folder I'd not use gmail. I mean, I pay for protonmail, so I wouldn't use gmail to begin with, but if mails I wanted ended up in my protonmail spamfolder and I couldn't do anything about it, then I'd switch away from protonmail.
You are 100% correct and yet the masses still prefer it.
World’s a twisted place!
I would guess the average Gmail user doesn’t know that it reports virtually all iCloud as Spam - believing instead that it’s genuinely being filtered by quality engineering at Google.
Sign in with Apple is Apple's SSO, like Sign in with Google. Services have to support this one explicitly, and it already had a special subdomain, so the specific subdomain is simply changing.
Hide My Email is the manually generated ones, for websites that accept an arbitrary email address. This is the one where it's valuable for the relays to be identical to genuine iCloud addresses, otherwise websites could try to block it and force you to use a more revealing email address, undermining privacy.
I’ll try to add more later, but it is believed that multiple times, a bug in some random API has allowed for the “hidden” Apple account to be revealed because they resolve hide my emails to the original internally. Using a separate namespace would be the universal fix.
Using icloud.com domain for legit and hidden adresses is such a typical Apple strategy of holding their own users and "others" (ie. other web services, other users etc) hostage simultaneously. But at least here it is actually a good reason that works for the user.
I'm glad they listened - I use this feature extensively and would like to continue to
I've noticed a chilling new trend of apple listening to the community.
My guess is Ternus is starting to take more and more control. Tim was pretty absent and phoning it in the past few years.
Anyone have a theory why this even made it to this point? the switch was such obviously a bad idea. just corporate weirdness that no one there bothered to raise their hand and be like "uh, are we really doing this?" or was there a story here that anyone knows about?
It's email reputation, it the always the answer with this kind of stuff.
My guess is that the bounce rate got too high and bot farms were using iCloud addresses like this.
The bounce rate of what, exactly?
Because the bounce rate of Hide My Email addresses being deliverable is going to rise over time, by design.
Whenever I start getting spam at an address that's been leaked, I deactivate it. I've done the same with my oldest gmail account, but the work required there is notably higher.
If they were moved to plain old icloud.com, I could absolutely see a bunch of companies starting to filter out all icloud.com email addresses to avoid private relay. Either just because they’re jerks or from bounce issues.
Keeping it on a subdomain fixes that problem, to some degree. If the user is named ffjvhtu57325cjdjvg501a2@icloud.com no one is going to think that’s a real address. It’s very obviously a private one. So it’s not like they were “camouflaged.“
It’s a little odd they’re switching the subdomain though.
Hide My Email already uses plain old @iCloud.com as the domain.
They are not changing the subdomain. There isn’t one. The announcement is they are leaving it as-is.
The email addresses for sign-in with Apple do use the @private.iCloud.com subdomain, but again, that’s not a change.
Right, but I'm asking "what bounce issues?"
Like for my usage there are no bounce issues with the ~400 legitimate providers that I have Hide My Email addresses from. The only ones with bounce issues are the spammers who've acquired leaked addresses that I've deactivated.
Maybe hidemyemail allows easily creating many accounts on a site. And some big site didn't like it.
The "Sign-up via Apple" button and creating an iCloud email yourself have a slightly higher barrier than creating a new throwaway hidemyemail email (1 API call w/o captcha/phone verification or whatever).
We might find out later this year if some site starts blocking @icloud.com but keeps allowing @private.icloud.com.
It does, and I know a friend of a friend who uses them for Walmart accounts to bot pokemon drops. Those and office aliases.
Hmm it’s almost as if people are paying good money for iCloud+ or something. They aren’t google and shouldn’t be retiring their services as if they’re giving them away for free
One of the best things about it. Also being able to add several emails per custom domain for free.
Whole thing is 99c a month. Makes Gmail seem like a joke in comparison.
Until you get an email from an iCloud address on Gmail and see it go right to spam haha. Suddenly Gmail is cheap again
Maybe it's because I live in a country where e-mai isn't really used that much for personal communication, but wouldn't this mainly be a gmail issue? If mails I wanted ended up in the spam folder I'd not use gmail. I mean, I pay for protonmail, so I wouldn't use gmail to begin with, but if mails I wanted ended up in my protonmail spamfolder and I couldn't do anything about it, then I'd switch away from protonmail.
You are 100% correct and yet the masses still prefer it.
World’s a twisted place!
I would guess the average Gmail user doesn’t know that it reports virtually all iCloud as Spam - believing instead that it’s genuinely being filtered by quality engineering at Google.
I don't understand how this changes anything. IIRC, the complaints were about Apple making the Hide My Email addresses different than regular ones.
They're now saying the new domain will be private.icloud.com. Isn't it just as targetable?
It's talking about two different services:
> Sign in with Apple addresses, previously issued on privaterelay.appleid.com, will be issued on private.icloud.com.
> iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com.
Sign in with Apple is Apple's SSO, like Sign in with Google. Services have to support this one explicitly, and it already had a special subdomain, so the specific subdomain is simply changing.
Hide My Email is the manually generated ones, for websites that accept an arbitrary email address. This is the one where it's valuable for the relays to be identical to genuine iCloud addresses, otherwise websites could try to block it and force you to use a more revealing email address, undermining privacy.
Good. What else can really be said? Only way for it to work and not be trivially blocked is to mix with legit emails.
A lot of places also don't really like icloud addresses in general. This is one of Apple's better offerings though.
Good! Was there ever a compelling reason why they went for this switch initially?
Yes, to fully fix a certain class of bug on their infra.
Do you know any more about it or have a link where I can read more?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48559935
If you dig more you could find the bug, but AFAIK it was that if you sent a large attachment, the bounce email would contain your real address.
I’ll try to add more later, but it is believed that multiple times, a bug in some random API has allowed for the “hidden” Apple account to be revealed because they resolve hide my emails to the original internally. Using a separate namespace would be the universal fix.
Good. This would have made blocking them trivial.
That was a stupid idea (the prev one)
thank god -.-