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Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

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Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#51

Post by neodypsis »

Animats wrote: post #18

"You can take some control over your own identity in the current email-based online ecosystem by renting a domain name" Originally, the idea was that you owned a domain name. Gradually, domain registrars have moved this to the concept that you're just renting it from them. Although you can still transfer domains to another registrar. I'd like to find a domain registrar whose contractual terms stated that you own your…

The Costa Rican NIC has the concept of personal domains for costa-rican citizens, but it isn't free [0]:

> Personal .cr domain names may only be registered by Costa Rican citizens over the age of 12 having an identity card and included in the Citizens' Registry of the Supreme Electoral Court of Costa Rica. In order to certify that they are citizens of the Republic of Costa Rica, the identity card must be valid at the time of submitting the application to register the personal domain name.

> NIC Costa Rica shall only approve a personal domain name once it verifies that its holder meets the requirements set forth in Section 9 of this document for the registration of personal domain names. The applicant must also send a copy of both sides of the identity card to the email info@nic.cr.

> Requests for personal domain names under .cr shall be reviewed by NIC Costa Rica using the tools provided by the National Registry and the Supreme Electoral Court of Costa Rica, as well as any other means NIC Costa Rica considers necessary.

[0] https://www.nic.cr/politicas/personales

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#52

Post by yonrg »

Shared404 wrote: post #35
TeeMassive wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can give unique throwaway addresses to people you don't fully trust (e.g. newsletters, recruiters) and apply the rules you want. It would be very naive to think that Big Tech won't abuse their market positions.

I do this, and it's very nice to tell who lost/sold my email. Also it's funny to see people react to their business name being in my email :P .

Yes, I got once a discount because the phone agent thought I am a colleague :)

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#53

Post by greazy »

somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

> I wish municipality offered domains, for example: you move to St Louis you would get name.stlouis.mo.us this would give you the same agency online that a mail address gets you offline.

Australia kinda does this with their `.id.au` second level domains for 'Individuals (by real name or common alias)'

Not many folks use it or know about it.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#54

Post by subroutine »

somat wrote: post #44
tommica wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you move to another place?

just like mail you would have to get a new address. under my imaginary scheme if you wanted better you would pay for a domain. but everyone would always have a local address to use if you wanted to participate(not just consume) online.

As the article says... "This is considerably more difficult with email because of the huge number of companies and services we want to have our updated email address. It takes a lot of time and effort to change your email address and it involves the risk of losing access to some critical service. There are so many of these services in our lives that we don’t even remember who they all are anymore!"

Including a city in the domain seems like it unnecessarily complicates things. If the goal is to provide free access to a more permanent online "identity", people shouldn't be forced to change it when they move.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#55

Post by WaitWaitWha »

somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

this is not a good idea for multiple reasons.

john@smith.stlouis.mo.us? Who gets that first?

arkhramud@maprikhoychich.stlouis.mo.us? How hard is to trace a person from one location to another?

To fix this email problem abandon the email as an account identifier. Use a 'username', or as I do a random set of characters and digits. There is no reason my account (login) has to be indexed as "john.smith@example.com". It can be "SDf23wfwef". And, at an other site, it can be "hdf3gf0s", and so on.

I believe this would also reduce spam.

An alternative is to use what freenet used with your idea. Just issue sequentially lettered & numbered emails with aaaaaaaa.stlouis.mo.us. a through z and 0 through 9 would give 2.8 billion addresses just for stlouis.mo.us. Moved away? forward the email for a period, bounce (?) for a period with new address, then re-issue.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#57

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

> people should stop and think carefully when choosing the @example.com part of their email address. It’s a decision you’re probably set to live with for life

Really? I’ve had dozens of email addresses over decades. I have a few favorites but even those have changed over time. I think your is hyperbole.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#58

Post by jjav »

ezoe wrote: post #47
somat wrote: post #25

It is a bit overkill, but the closest you can get to owning your online identity is to "own" your own domain. sarcastiquotes used because you don't really own a domain you only rent it. I run my own mail server because I am a sys-admin and running a mail-server is something I do for fun. but the amount of agency you gain once you have a domain is staggering. people without a domain are pretty much second class net ci…

How do you own a domain? If you rely on a registrar, it just move the identity owner from an email provider to a registrar. Real overkill method is own a TLD. It's unrealistic for an individual though.

> If you rely on a registrar, it just move the identity owner from an email provider to a registrar.

OP put own in quotes because of this.

Still, while horror stories with registrars certainly exist, they are vastly outnumbered by horror stories of gmail/et.al. locking people out for no reason and no recourse.

Re: Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

#59

Post by godmode2019 »

Shared404 wrote: post #35
TeeMassive wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can give unique throwaway addresses to people you don't fully trust (e.g. newsletters, recruiters) and apply the rules you want. It would be very naive to think that Big Tech won't abuse their market positions.

I do this, and it's very nice to tell who lost/sold my email. Also it's funny to see people react to their business name being in my email :P .

I had a website break, because they were filtering emails that contain their domain name for some reason.

And I had no way to apply for the government licence thing I needed, and the people on the phone suggested I use the website.

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