Aren't they the ones violating CFAA? They made an account for GP then accessed it without authorization.

People make mistakes.Just because someone made a mistake isn't permission to commit a crime against them.

Accidentally signing up once is a mistake. One person signing up for products, credit cards, unemployment, medical bills, television services, payday loans, mortgages, jobs with my email address over a 6 year period isn’t a mistake. This is some middle age dude in middle America.

What gives you the confidence to say that it was a single individual and not just a common email name which lots of people accidentally used?

I get regular emails intended for my doppelgänger, and have for many, many years. I know her entire family by proxy—we’ve effectively moved through the same stages of life together, in parallel, across the globe. For a while I used to respond to the more important-seeming messages, but it’s more mailing lists now. She and I are very far away physically—and it’s hard to say whether she knows about me at all, as I don’t mess up the email address in our collective name…

Oddly enough I’m still not sure of her correct address, only those of her correspondents. And in some cases family members.

> What gives you the confidence to say that it was a single individual

Because you can see their first name and last name on the emails you receive.

And addresses, I even knew when he was sending his mistress nicer flowers than his wife.

I get other people’s email too, just this guy has been more prolific than others.

It's not particularly likely to be tested for most types of online accounts, but if you told a judge that you thought the person had created an account for you to use, the judge would tell you to stop lying, they would not congratulate you on your clever argument.