Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
1–10 of 258 posts
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#2> The only real solution is to rethink online identity and stop depending on email addresses.
I think that is true, but it would have to be a better solution. Some groups heavily push for this reformation of online identity but most of them have in common that they want to strongly bind online identity to your offline one. That simply isn't desirable in many cases.
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#3For me it's Fastmail with a side of Namecheap (or maybe vice versa). Thankfully I pay both companies, thus there's an incentive to keep me happy so I keep paying... In particular, Fastmail has real support staff, which provides at least a modicum of peace of mind.
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#4This is largely true for myself as well. 1Password helps me and my family from going full in, but if I lost my gmail i would have a lot of problems.
The recent discussion of CP flagging wreaking havoc[0] has caused us to start evaluating because we do have young children and we do take pictures for healthcare providers. Feels like a ticking time bomb for us.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#5> The only real solution is to rethink online identity and stop depending on email addresses. I think that is true, but it would have to be a better solution. Some groups heavily push for this reformation of online identity but most of them have in common that they want to strongly bind online identity to your offline one. That simply isn't desirable in many cases.
iirc online identity used to be tied to your public key signature ? Might be too technical for most population to use, but the ideal solution is already there I think ?
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#6The problem with several of these email subscriptions is that they will reissue your email address to another if you leave them, with all the risks that entails. The answer is to buy and use your own domain or get someone else to do it.
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#7State-funded email with E2EE. Every citizen gets an email address. You don't have to use it (and it will probably suck compared to competitors), but you'll have it as a permanent fallback address. And presumably it will come with some legal protections and due process.
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#8The problem with several of these email subscriptions is that they will reissue your email address to another if you leave them, with all the risks that entails. The answer is to buy and use your own domain or get someone else to do it.
This is a good idea but in practice it just shifts the problem onto the domain registrar. Maybe/hopefully they are friendlier than email provider but if you do Gmail vs Google Domains, what's the difference?
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#9Another solution that the article doesn't mention: separate the email address from the email provider. It really is the domain name that is your legal identity. Make it as easy for people to register a personal domain name as it is for them to sign up for free email so they can switch from Gmail to Hotmail to Protonmail without changing their email address.
Edit: We then need a standard for discoverable DNS settings that providers can publish, together with an endpoint that the domain name provider calls to inform the email provider that it should accept email from person@personaldomain.person and forward it to person@emailprovider.com. Then your domain name provider can discover these, and switching email provider can be done with a click of a button without you having to have any knowledge of DNS. Of course email providers will have little interest in supporting something like this, so this is where regulation would be needed.
Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
#10This is largely true for myself as well. 1Password helps me and my family from going full in, but if I lost my gmail i would have a lot of problems. The recent discussion of CP flagging wreaking havoc[0] has caused us to start evaluating because we do have young children and we do take pictures for healthcare providers. Feels like a ticking time bomb for us. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-su…
The bastards even refused to restore access after the individuals involved were cleared by police. That part alone has made me start considering other options. No company should be allowed to wield that much power over a person.