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The Mailroom / The address of record
One address, and the day a change takes

The address of record: where the operator is entitled to write

An operator writes to the address it holds, and the terms usually say so explicitly. That makes the address of record the single most consequential setting on the account, and changing it is the moment a message can go somewhere the reader no longer looks.

Desk spec
addresses
2
change takes
24 h
messages a day
1.67
caught by the window
1.7
the five kindsA receipt records something that already happened, marketing promotes something, a service note explains a state of the account, a security alert says something changed, and a legal notice is the message whose arrival is itself a step.
the two switchesOne stops marketing and nothing else - 12 of 50 messages on the samples. The other does not stop anything: it changes the channel the remaining 38 travel on, which changes how they arrive and what they prove.
the three countsSent is what the operator's log holds (50 of 50), arrived is what a delivery receipt shows (48 of 50), and read is what a read receipt shows (21 of 50). Three counts, routinely called one.
Direct answer

An account carries at least two addresses of record - an email address and a telephone number - and the terms treat the ones held at the time of sending as correct. On the samples a change takes twenty-four hours to take effect, so a message sent inside that window goes to the old address: about 1.7 messages on average, 0.4 of them marketing.

Two addresses, two jobs

The email address is the channel that carries documents and evidence; the telephone number is the channel that carries short, urgent messages. They are separate settings, and changing one does not change the other, which is why a reader who changes a number and keeps an old inbox keeps receiving receipts there.

Sample G - the two addresses of record and what each carries
AddressMessagesCarriesEvidences arrivalChange takes
email33receipts, offers, notes, alerts and noticesyes24 h
telephone number2short alerts and one-time codesyes24 h
two addresses35 of 50the other 15 travel to the in-app inbox, push or post--
sample G - what the twenty-four hours catch messages in the month = 50 over 30 days = 1.67 a day a 24-hour window catches 50 / 30 = 1.67 messages of those, marketing = (12 / 30) x 1 = 0.4 messages the other 1.3 are receipts, notes, alerts and notices so a change to the address of record that is made and then forgotten diverts 1.7 messages, and the four kinds a reader needs most are the majority of them.

Why the change is a security event

An address of record is also the way a password reset reaches a reader, so a change to it is the step an attacker wants most. That is why the change takes a day rather than a moment, and why the notice of the change is itself one of the five kinds.

sample G - three messages one change produces the change is requested -> a receipt to the old address the change takes effect -> a notice to the new address any message inside the window -> routed to the old address 3 events, 2 addresses, 1 day of overlap if the change was not made by the reader, all three are evidence, which is why the request notification is sent even when the change is refused.

What to do with the address of record

The setting is worth ten minutes, because almost every later argument about "I was never told" resolves into a question about which address the operator held.

  • Keep the email address on the account one you actually read, and one the operator has evidenced a message to.
  • Change one address at a time, so a receipt you did not expect identifies the one that was changed.
  • Expect the change to take about a day, and expect the messages inside that day to go to the old address.
  • Treat the notification of a change you did not make as the moment to check sessions and payout methods, not the moment to reply.
  • Keep the receipt for the change itself: it dates the point at which later messages had a new destination.

Read next

Sent, delivered, readWhat the log knows and what it does notThe proofWhat proves a message arrivedThe two switchesThe setting that is about routing, not noiseThe recordWhat the operator keeps about each send