> 2 services moved my account to a different email address instead of deleting it. I was only able to detect this because they changed the mailbox part (the bit in front of the @ sign) but left the domain unchanged. I capture all incoming emails to my domain, so I saw email-change confirmation emails and other emails arriving at the new unexpected addresses.
That's sketchy, especially if you don't own the domain but you're on a multi tenant domain like Gmail
AFAIK, with the default domains owned by the email providers, Gmail and Yahoo don’t recycle unused/deleted gmail/yahoo addresses ever (whereas other paid providers like Fastmail, Posteo, etc., do recycle within a few months or in a year or so). One needs to be wary of address recycling policies while using somebody else’s domain.
I’m unable to edit my comment above, but I understood the problem of changing the email address (even to something like name-deleted, since it could be claimed or already registered by someone else). In this context, my comment above is pointless. :(
Thanks also to @paranoidrobot for the additional explanation.
That's sketchy, especially if you don't own the domain but you're on a multi tenant domain like Gmail