I had a crush in high school. Ended up going to the same college and were semi-close friends during that time.
One day I heard she had broken up with her boyfriend, and lo and behold I get a text from her that she wants me to come over urgently. It's almost midnight. She says she needs help with her Google account from a tech pro.
The thing is, this woman has a very unique name. Such a beautiful name. Not one I have ever heard before or since. So for all of her online accounts, her username is just her first name. @firstname on Twitter, firstname@yahoo.com, etc.
When I got there she told me she'd decided to finally take my advice. I'd been telling her for years to switch from Yahoo to Gmail. But there was a problem: when we tried to register it, Google told us "this account name is taken".
"This will be simple," I thought. She must have registered it and forgotten about it, we'll just send the password reset to her Yahoo email. But when we went to the password reset page Google told us "this account does not exist".
Seemingly contradictory. It must be a bug!
I told her I would need to do some research and hurried out. I remember the confused look on her face, I don't think she wanted me to leave. Surely a bit of Googling and emailing and I could get her the coveted email address and be the hero! Stupid me.
After digging for hours I did find some mysterious @google.com email addresses and I tried those. I think I found a Google employee via my extended Facebook network and reached out. A week went by, I never heard back.
One day I decided to try to get into the Google campus in Cambridge. Unsurprisingly, I was not granted entry. The doorman was amused by my attempt at a romantic gesture so he said maybe he'd tell my story to somebody inside.
I even applied for a job at Google so that I could hopefully speak to a recruiter. Someone, anyone at Google. My time was running out. But at the time I had no experience and was a sophomore in college. No calls.
I'm still friends with that woman but nothing ever happened. She's now engaged.
I know it wasn't Google's fault that I lost my college crush. If I hadn't been so socially inept at the time it may have gone differently.
But if anyone from Google ever sees this, please get in touch[1]. The bug still exists. I just know she'd be really happy to have that email address.
Enginerd 1: Today the strangest thing happened. I was walking around campus, and a beautiful girl rode up to me on a bicycle. She hopped off the bike, took off all her clothes, and said to me "take what you want!" And that is how I got this fantastic new bike!
Enginerd 2: nods approvingly Those clothes would not have fit you anyway.
Was the name five characters or less? I don't know what the UI was like at the time you tried. There are Gmail accounts that short, but they have been created by hand, usually for other Google colleagues, by someone on the Gmail team. E.g. paul@gmail.com is, obviously, Paul Buchheit.
Then perhaps the likeliest explanation is that the account was created, then deleted. Google accounts do not get recycled. It should be straightforward to verify that theory, although it might take a month for it to enter a hard-deleted state (I've never done that).
The people who could figure what happened are those that work on GAIA (https://developers.google.com/issue-tracker/concepts/access-...). Account information and history are a touchy issue, so I doubt anyone would get involved, unless they had reason to (abuse, legal action, proper law enforcement request, etc.). Looking up user information on a hunch is a sure way for an employee to get in trouble, since access to the directory is heavily tracked. Even acknowledging the existence of an account at some point in the past carries risk...
It's not a bug. Google doesn't allow similar looking emails to exist at the same time for gmail.com for security reasons.
e.g. johnsmith@gmail.com and j0hnsm1th@gmail.com aren't allowed to exist at the same time. If one was created first, you are not allowed to create the other.
One day I heard she had broken up with her boyfriend, and lo and behold I get a text from her that she wants me to come over urgently. It's almost midnight. She says she needs help with her Google account from a tech pro.
The thing is, this woman has a very unique name. Such a beautiful name. Not one I have ever heard before or since. So for all of her online accounts, her username is just her first name. @firstname on Twitter, firstname@yahoo.com, etc.
When I got there she told me she'd decided to finally take my advice. I'd been telling her for years to switch from Yahoo to Gmail. But there was a problem: when we tried to register it, Google told us "this account name is taken".
"This will be simple," I thought. She must have registered it and forgotten about it, we'll just send the password reset to her Yahoo email. But when we went to the password reset page Google told us "this account does not exist".
Seemingly contradictory. It must be a bug!
I told her I would need to do some research and hurried out. I remember the confused look on her face, I don't think she wanted me to leave. Surely a bit of Googling and emailing and I could get her the coveted email address and be the hero! Stupid me.
After digging for hours I did find some mysterious @google.com email addresses and I tried those. I think I found a Google employee via my extended Facebook network and reached out. A week went by, I never heard back.
One day I decided to try to get into the Google campus in Cambridge. Unsurprisingly, I was not granted entry. The doorman was amused by my attempt at a romantic gesture so he said maybe he'd tell my story to somebody inside.
I even applied for a job at Google so that I could hopefully speak to a recruiter. Someone, anyone at Google. My time was running out. But at the time I had no experience and was a sophomore in college. No calls.
I'm still friends with that woman but nothing ever happened. She's now engaged.
I know it wasn't Google's fault that I lost my college crush. If I hadn't been so socially inept at the time it may have gone differently.
But if anyone from Google ever sees this, please get in touch[1]. The bug still exists. I just know she'd be really happy to have that email address.
[1] https://apeace.github.io/contact.html