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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

#121

Post by camtarn »

Borg3 wrote: post #118
tjpnz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

The constant parade on HN of Google Cloud Platform paid users who got their accounts shut down for no reason and with no recourse would suggest otherwise.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#122

Post by tjpnz »

bbor wrote: post #116
tjpnz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you be open to the nationalization of email services? Curious if your very HN-friendly sentiment also implies agreement with this very HN-unfriendly extension.

Irrelevant. If my privately owned utility screws up they're still obliged to follow the law.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#123

Post by happybeing »

I have both my own non-identifiable domain which I use for email - and a domain of my own name which I picked up when the original owner let it expire. I had to bid to get it from a broker who squatted it but it didn't cost much.

My namesake was a famous (in some circles) wealthy person and I did start getting his emails. Quite a lot initially, and I replied to let the senders know.

That was probably twenty years ago and I'm still regularly invited to galleries for viewings as he obviously collected art. I gave up trying to get off those gallery mailing lists and now just bin them.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#124

Post by WA »

happybeing wrote: post #123

I have both my own non-identifiable domain which I use for email - and a domain of my own name which I picked up when the original owner let it expire. I had to bid to get it from a broker who squatted it but it didn't cost much. My namesake was a famous (in some circles) wealthy person and I did start getting his emails. Quite a lot initially, and I replied to let the senders know. That was probably twenty years ago…

> my own non-identifiable domain

I have one too, but realized that it’s kinda pointless. If it’s only you receiving emails at your domain, it’s clear that if you sign up for a Facebook account and a Google account and a shopping website, that it’s always the same person.

The advantage of big email providers is that it could be anyone. I just wouldn’t use Google.

Fastmail offers email redirects like the iCloud anonymization service.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#125

Post by kwanbix »

bbor wrote: post #116
tjpnz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you be open to the nationalization of email services? Curious if your very HN-friendly sentiment also implies agreement with this very HN-unfriendly extension.

What nationalization has to do with what he said? They need to be regulated. It is outrageous that they can say "you violated our policies" and do not explain which policy and how.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#126

Post by piaste »

bbor wrote: post #116
tjpnz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you be open to the nationalization of email services? Curious if your very HN-friendly sentiment also implies agreement with this very HN-unfriendly extension.

There's little need to nationalize, since emails don't have a last-mile or natural monopoly issue.

I think, however, that modern countries should provide all citizens with an official, public, mail address. Restrict them to only send/receive emails to/from a whitelist of publicly registered service providers with very strict personal data governance requirements (government, banks, utilities, medical services, higher education).

You can let private companies continue to offer email addresses for everything else, anonymously and under whatever terms. (Much like how you can still buy a mailbox if you want, but you're always guaranteed to receive the mail at your address.) Just ensure that people aren't cut off from essential services.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#127

Post by Aardwolf »

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'…

With an email service, your account can be terminated there. With a registrar, your account or domain could be terminated as well.

So both have similar risk, so best strategy is to spread the risk and have multiple accounts of different types.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#128

Post by Bu9818 »

WA wrote: post #124
happybeing wrote: post #123

I have both my own non-identifiable domain which I use for email - and a domain of my own name which I picked up when the original owner let it expire. I had to bid to get it from a broker who squatted it but it didn't cost much. My namesake was a famous (in some circles) wealthy person and I did start getting his emails. Quite a lot initially, and I replied to let the senders know. That was probably twenty years ago…

> my own non-identifiable domain I have one too, but realized that it’s kinda pointless. If it’s only you receiving emails at your domain, it’s clear that if you sign up for a Facebook account and a Google account and a shopping website, that it’s always the same person. The advantage of big email providers is that it could be anyone. I just wouldn’t use Google. Fastmail offers email redirects like the iCloud anonymi…

I agree. I would use protonmail or something else for signing up for websites, as a domain would be linked to me (unless I buy dozens of domain names anonymously).

For Git commits or communication tied to my real identity, then yeah I'd use my own domain name. But for anonymity, nope.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#129

Post by piaste »

theshrike79 wrote: post #62
dale_glass wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, GPG for email was mostly a mistake, because email can't be secured enough. GPG leaves all the headers exposed, and reveals who's talking to whom. That, right there, is a huge security problem. Turns out metadata is often plenty. And it can't even encrypt the subject, which is a footgun of enormous proportions. Picture a high stakes situation like say, a resistance member in the Russian occupied parts of Ukraine.…

Which communication methods leak no metadata? If two people are communicating, the message always needs to know where it's going and in most cases where it's coming from. Not encrypting the email subject is an implementation detail really.

> Which communication methods leak no metadata?

> If two people are communicating, the message always needs to know where it's going and in most cases where it's coming from

Sure, but you can still do a lot of things to make it much, much harder for the same Carol to identify Alice and Bob.

SimpleX is a good example of how far you can go and how many obstacles you can pile up onto the same protocol:

https://simplex.chat/#how-simplex-works

https://simplex.chat/#privacy

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