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Reasons to not use your own domain for email

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Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#101

Post by [deleted] »

ghusto wrote: post #67
sschueller wrote: post #2

I strongly disagree. - Google has on multiple occasions terminated accounts for no reason with no recourse. You loose access you can't do anything. If you have your own domain you can at least set it up somewhere else. How many website would you need to update with your new email and how would you get thay extra factor mail? - If I die I don't care if someone else reads my mail, I'm dead. Also you can add a dead man'…

> Also you can add a dead man's switch This is something I've struggled to find a solution for. Do you have any suggestions? The best I've come up with is a safe with enough information to provide access to my password manager, but obviously this makes me pretty uncomfortable. I could hand it over to a lawyer as part of my will, maybe?

[deleted]

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#102

Post by mingus88 »

Yizahi wrote: post #95

I sometimes wonder if I should set up email with custom domain, but then I read how it will be quickly blacklisted by everyone and your mail simply won't be reaching anyone. That is the biggest problem I think, not the domain payments.

Pay a reputable provider to host your domain and that is not a problem. I use protonmail and their sending reputation is fine.

You really don’t want to be self-hosting your own email in 2023 and all the headaches that entails anyway.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#103

Post by akho »

Yizahi wrote: post #96
traceroute66 wrote: post #39

> Reasons to not use your own domain for email Aside from the fact that the author of the blog doesn't really provide any "reasons" in their blog ... There are ZERO reasons not to use your own domain name for email. The biggest reason TO use your own domain name is that you are not subject to the corporate whims of your ISP, cloud-email provider or whatever. You get to choose, and you get to choose when to switch. Th…

What about blacklists? I read that it is a huge problem with custom domains.

Only if you spam. That's why they're called "spam blacklists".

You can spam inadvertently, of course, e. g. if you (or someone else you gave an email on your domain) get pwned. That's problematic.

The issue is still overblown.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#104

Post by liotier »

sschueller wrote: post #44
bandie91 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- some sites will just silently refuse… → their problem, not yours, don't take on. - refuse to send a password reset… → is it a payed service? request moneyback, involve customer protection. is it free service? no warranty for you. don't rely on it heavily. - say out our your email address to a non-technical person… → don't connect to people who can not copy ascii letters, written or verbally. my daugther is 5, she c…

Giving in to sites refusing to take custom domains is what leads to for example self hosted email being so difficult now because the big 3 run the show and defacto control internet mail. We should also stop "dumbing down" to a point of sacrificing security and anonymity because people are unable to take down an email address in 2023. Remember when Google and others wanted to get rid of urls and use just words because…

The whole concept of "custom domain" is absurd - a domain is a domain... Or why does Google use that google.com custom domain instead of a respectable one like ibm.com ?

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#105

Post by Yizahi »

ajwilson wrote: post #97
Yizahi wrote: post #95

I sometimes wonder if I should set up email with custom domain, but then I read how it will be quickly blacklisted by everyone and your mail simply won't be reaching anyone. That is the biggest problem I think, not the domain payments.

If you're hosting the email server yourself sure it can be problematic, but i've never had delivery/recieving problems with a service like Fastmail.

I plan to move to Protonmail, but debate about creating custom domain or not. Even regular protommail domain is sometimes banned (read in the news about several cases of this, for now only in the authoritarian hellholes) which is bad for sych critical service as email.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#106

Post by Yizahi »

akho wrote: post #103
Yizahi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about blacklists? I read that it is a huge problem with custom domains.

Only if you spam. That's why they're called "spam blacklists". You can spam inadvertently, of course, e. g. if you (or someone else you gave an email on your domain) get pwned. That's problematic. The issue is still overblown.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I've read that some blacklists operate on the guilty until proven innocent basis and owner needs to prove that he is legit first, to each blocklist separately. Is it true? I also regularly see comments like "just configure DMARK, and BLA and BLABLA and another ten items, and maintain them up to date forever, and you will be fine". Would I need to learn and do all this if want to use custom domain with some provider like Protonmail or Fastmail?

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#107

Post by BiteCode_dev »

The best reason against it is the fact many website, because of stupid policies or incompetent engineers, will reject the address as invalid.

Happens to me regularly and makes my life difficult.

I still like better than the alternative though. I got locked out of google accounts twice in my life and had one other email provider close entirely.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#108

Post by probably_wrong »

Yizahi wrote: post #95

I sometimes wonder if I should set up email with custom domain, but then I read how it will be quickly blacklisted by everyone and your mail simply won't be reaching anyone. That is the biggest problem I think, not the domain payments.

Like dieting and exercise, the trick is to start now to reap the benefits down the line.

I've been hosting my own email for about 10 years now. I started using it just for throwaway accounts and I've been ramping up usage slowly ever since. By the time GMail blocked my account with no explanation I had a fully-functioning domain with good reputation ready to go.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#109

Post by 15457345234 »

EspressoGPT wrote: post #65
15457345234 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll care after they accidentally email their entire company's accounts to some random gmail account after receiving a phishing 'hi, I'm your new accountant at audit_firm_you're_using' email. If you don't use a corporate domain for your company's correspondence your customers have _no way_ to tell who's a legitimate employee of your firm and who's spoofing when they get an email.

Yeah, that's true for companies that have several employees with customer contact. But many individual companies/self-employed workers don't have that.

That's irrelevant.

Even if you're a sole trader, if you use companyname@bigemailprovider anybody can create companyname.secretary@bigemailprovider and phish/steal your customers by pretending to be a member of your staff. Your customers will assume good faith unless their approach is blatantly scammy.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#110

Post by tjpnz »

sschueller wrote: post #2

I strongly disagree. - Google has on multiple occasions terminated accounts for no reason with no recourse. You loose access you can't do anything. If you have your own domain you can at least set it up somewhere else. How many website would you need to update with your new email and how would you get thay extra factor mail? - If I die I don't care if someone else reads my mail, I'm dead. Also you can add a dead man'…

As evidenced here the impact of account terminations can have a profound impact on a persons life. Email providers like Google should be treated as utilities and regulated as such, they should be legally obligated to communicate with their users, ideally working towards a resolution. Until then you really should be treating said accounts in the same way you would a hotel rental phone.
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