# "Re-Enter your email address." Why?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-enter-your-email-address-why/595148>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 4, 2011, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-enter-your-email-address-why/595148 "2011-09-04T06:27:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Catfood\_Purrito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Catfood\_Purrito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catfood_Purrito)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-enter-your-email-address-why/595148/41 "2011-09-04T22:26:21Z")

</div>

> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> I can’t believe so many people copy/paste their email address from the initial box to the confirmation box. You’re defeating the purpose of a check system that is designed to help YOU.

No kidding! I have a really simple email address, I signed up early enough at Gmail that I managed to get my first name, which is also apparently a surname. So, if my email was [smith@gmail.com](mailto:smith@gmail.com), every person whose email is [jsmith@gmail.com](mailto:jsmith@gmail.com), or bsmith, or whatever, whenever they accidentally leave off their initial on their email address when they sign up for shit, I get all their email. One lady was trying to get a loan for a car, and every single day for a week, I got five emails with a link to print off the forms she needed, because she was apparently too retarded to check her account profile to figure out why she wasn’t receiving her emails. And this sort of thing happens regularly. Just last week, I had a lady accidentally enter my email address when she signed up for a 160-dollar professional association membership.

So, I’m definitely in favor of forcing people to enter their email twice, and disabling copy and pasting, because people really are stupid and/or careless enough to warrant it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-enter-your-email-address-why/595148/42 "2011-09-04T22:44:09Z")

</div>

For those pointing out my typo in the OP, the point is with autofill I’m not _typing_ my email address at all (in the first field - currently autofill doesn’t recognise the second field) which is why I think it’s unnecessary.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-enter-your-email-address-why/595148/43 "2011-09-04T22:58:23Z")

</div>

The thing about autofill is…presumably it’s correct. (In my case it certainly is.) I click the first box and enter the first letter of my email address, it loads, I copy and paste into box number two - the entire process takes five seconds or less.

I admit that I am a horrible typist, and anything that lets me circumvent the process to gain a few seconds is a win.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-enter-your-email-address-why/595148.md?page=2)