Help please - An email address that I rarely used several years ago got reset to someone else's apple ID in place of the email account they used to create their account. How can this happen?

Question

A friend accused me of switching an email account that I used several years ago to send them photos on Flikr (gmail) for their Apple ID - in other words of.messing with their account. I only used the gmail account to post / send them and several other people photos on a few occasions and have not used the account since. I forgot that I had it. When this friend couldn't access their iTunes account the store discovered that the email had been reset to my very old gmail address. How is this possible? Now, they are accusing me of hacking in although no purchases were made and nothing was done with the account. Still, my reputation is at stake. Could they have done it in error? It looks bad for me. Help please.

Answer 1

I made up the names edward and daniel, it's not actually anyone's email address, so no need for concern.
In practice, I'm sure you're right that I would have fewer problems with a longer, more complex email address. But in principal, the problem remains. I could sign up for the Apple ID
1234.NoOneWillEverUseThisAddress.5678@gmail
and someone else could sign up for the Apple ID
1234.NoOneWillEverUseThisAddress.5678+1@gmail
and apple would have no problem with it, even though for all intents and purposes it's the same email address. So the problem is not just the ambiguity of my, to use Dahveed's words, overly simplistic and unsophisticated, email address:
there is a fundamental flaw in the way Apple links email addresses to accounts that allows for this ambiguity.  If they followed the same conventions that gmail did, there would be no possibility of this problem.