Quick background:
Some guy named Dale in Canada just registered his account for online access with Telus – which is Canadian cable/internet company. But he used my email address (this is not something new – I get stuff for Danielle, Debbie, Denise, Deborah, other Dales, and so on, all the time – I guess because people are stupid and don’t know their own emails). So of course, I got the emails – multiple ones. So I got into their online chat, and talked with a support guy named David to get them to remove my email from this guy’s account and their system.
This is what happened (I’m using the handle ‘Not Dale’). This isn’t the whole conversation, but the most important parts.
Me after closing the chat:
yankee.velo.foxtrot 
Hi Dale (if that is your real name). I wanted to point out a small error in logic. You dealt with two Canadians. Your blog post title says “Canadians”, implying all 35 million Canadians don’t know how to use the internet. My math tells me that a more accurate title would be “0.000056% of Canadians don’t understand how the internet works.” BTW, Canada has a higher Internet penetration rate than the USA (just a wee bit).
Love your blog!
LoL. I’m not Dale! That’s the whole point! I know Canadians know how to use the internet – just not apparently ISP customer service reps. Sigh.
Can confirm it’s not just Canadians. I have lost count of the number of people that I have had to explain this issue to. I blame the fact that my e-mail is very generic (firstnamemiddlename) since I, too, got in on the gmail beta. I’ve gotten enough e-mail sent to me that contained private information that I could easily steal the identity of several people across the world… although, is it stealing if they readily have people e-mail you copies of their travel visa information?
Same thing! I get emails for so many people of same last name and first initial. I’ve gotten access to their Netflix account, cable/internet account, phone account, emails from doctors, aunt’s uncles, sports leagues, online receipts for purchases, travel information, omg it’s endless. All because people are too stupid to pay attention to what they are doing.