Re: designate an email address for testing at any provider

[John Levine <johnl at iecc.com>]

>A test-only email address should be recognized in standards, much as
>test-only domains exist (e.g., example.com and *.test), for similar
>purposes of having a token that can safely escape into the wild from
>internal use and documentation without fear of representing an actual
>account. I did not find an RFC or other standard providing this.

I fear you are about 25 years too late.  It has long been a normal
configuration to have a "catch all" domain in which every possible
address is valid. Typically all go to the same place or a small set of
places.

This lets mail get delivered even if the address was typed slightly
wrong, e.g., john at example.com vs jon at example.com, and it lets you make
up per correspondent addresses which are handy when you're signing up
for lists and web sites you don't entirely trust.  On today's Internet
where 95% of mail is spam, catachall domains aren't as attractive as
they once were, but there are lots of them and they're not going away.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.