[LINK] Why www.etc?

[Adam Todd]

At 10:48 AM 7/12/2007, Kim Holburn wrote:

>On 2007/Dec/06, at 11:41 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>>
>>This approach to email also mimics real mail. It made it quite easy
>>for me to teach people how to conceptually construct one. Doesn't
>>mean they got them typed correctly as there is no standard except
>>for the @, country code, and the top level domain.
>
>Not true, there are RFCs that specify email addresses and DNS names.
>In certain circumstances as Glen pointed out you don't need TLDs or
>even the host part of the address, for instance it used to be the
>case that if emailing someone on the same server: you could just use
>their user name (without even an @), someone in the same domain: just
>their name at host.  In these days of anti-spam measures you can't
>usually do that any more.

And virtual email services.  There might be no "username" account 
actually existing on the server in the domain!