I wanted to talk to someone at a law firm in a big office building. Accessing the building required badging in. I said to the security staff I wanted to visit a law firm in that building. They said I must register on a touchpad. The form required my name, phone number, and email address, which had red asterisks -- required fields and grayed out button until they were filled. I entered bogus info and got a visitor badge.

Got an email from a bank saying my account has been put in a restricted state because they have been unable to reach me. Their emails reach me fine. They rarely send paper mail but when they do I can see that they have the correct address on file.

Then I looked closer at their email, examined the HTML, and found that they insert a tracker pixel in their messages. So if I were to use a graphical mail client with default configs, they would surreptitiously get a signal telling them my IP (thus whereabouts) and time of day every time I open my email from them. I use a text client so the tracker pixels get ignored.

Would a bank conclude from lack of tracker pixels signals that they are not reaching a customer, and then lock down their account?

I’m not going to call them and ask.. fuck them for interrupting my day and making me dance. I don’t lick boots like that. I just wonder if anyone else who does not trigger tracker pixels has encountered this situation.

An insurance agent who I called on the phone for a quote demanded my email address. I resisted, said he could have my fax number instead. He said the form he is filling out in order to get me a quote will not move forward without an email address. I got the impression this was not a requirement of the agent but rather the underwriting company, which means no matter which agent sells me the policy it’s impossible to get insurance from that underwriter without an email address. I would be denied insurance with this underwriter had I not supplied an email address in a phone conversation. They assume if you have access to a phone line, you have email.

So I gave him a disposable. This is still not an okay solution. The quote he sent by email traversed Microsoft servers and contained sensitive information without encryption. It doesn’t matter that MS did not get my real email address considering they still got lots of personal info about me from the quote.

It’s also interesting to note that mortgage lenders require borrowers to always have homeowner’s insurance. So I will dream about pulling this activist move: drop the insurance after securing a mortgage, tell the bank “I cannot get insurance because I don’t have an email address”. Insurance companies tend to refuse to sell policies to someone who is not the beneficiary of the policy, so the bank would not be able to insure the home on their side. I would just love to see that shitshow play out. If anyone wants to drop their homeowners insurance for any reason, this might be your best defense for doing so.

Funnily enough, the insurer offers a “paperless discount”, which means they actually have a paper-sending service for those who are not paperless. Yet everyone must have an email address before they even get a quote.