I have a very early gmail address. A very common first name plus two letters. It is almost unusable by now. Invoices, subscriptions, important documents about some persons real estate dealings. They all end up in my inbox.

I have around 20 or 30 google accounts attached where i am the backup email address. Those people forget their passwords or stop using their accounts and i get email notifications about that. No confirmation from my side necessary.

I set up a new address that is less likely to end up with this problem. But migrating away from the old one is not easy…

> I have around 20 or 30 google accounts attached where i am the backup email address. Those people forget their passwords or stop using their accounts and i get email notifications about that. No confirmation from my side necessary.

Does google not require a verification when you setup a backup email address?!

Exactly the same situation with me in terms of gmail address (although my names are less common).

I get so many other $MY_NAME emails, including bills (including multiple credit cards and things like Afterpay), deliveries, medical details/reports, family communications, etc, etc.

And it's very clear that quite a few online services blatantly don't verify email addresses, they just assume the email is valid and allow the person to start using it.