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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

#171

Post by Brajeshwar »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #91

DO use a your own domain. Advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Instead of being at the mercy of whatever email provider you choose, you're free to move your domain where ever you want, without updating "a million" senders. DO NOT host your own email server though. A couple of decades ago it made perfect sense to do so, but these days it's simply not worth the trouble. Instead use Google/Outlook/Apple/Whatever t…

Yes, I agree with this, and it is my pattern too. One can replace MXRoute with other providers you are comfortable with. Google is still an acceptable candidate for your custom domain email. I do have Migadu[1] as a throw-everything-in for all new and other domains that are not that important. The idea is, “Can I walk out of this provider and move to another in minutes?” I have experimented and walked in and out of Gmail, Migadu a few times to see how it goes.

For backup, I have tried quite a few, and the simplest I found (for now) is just to run Thunderbird (daily, weekly) and set it to download a local copy via POP. MBOX is an open and acceptable format by most other clients (if you need to change clients).

I will continue to clean up and streamline the processes, but the general idea is to have a backup (preferably local) somewhere, while the primary email can be accessed from your choice of client or the web.

1. https://www.migadu.com

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#172

Post by danaris »

soraminazuki wrote: post #160
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.

Not to mention that account termination is only one way email providers can screw you over. They can bait and switch, take your emails hostage, and start charging premium. They can put ads that look like legitimate emails. They can cut costs, and open your emails up to hackers. They can peek, censor, or tamper with your private emails. They can even impersonate you. Some people might laugh that away as ridiculous. Bu…

> Sure, using your own domain can open you up to mistakes. But at least, you're the one in charge.

...Of the management of the domain and the email itself.

But if Google, Microsoft, or one of the other major email providers decides that you, someone else in your subnet, or even your ISP or VPS provider, is not following the rules they've decided are important, they can just...put you in a black hole. And you have no recourse. And your emails will simply never get to people using one of those providers, and you may not even know that it's happening without a user report.

(Note that this is not me saying "And thus you should just give up and use Gmail." I still run my own email server, and I've managed to get it set up in such a way that it's mostly accepted by the megacorps, but it took months to figure out why it was even being blocked, and then I had to switch to a completely different VPS provider to get around the block. If there's a message here, it's "...and therefore we should break up the big providers under antitrust law, because no one should be allowed to be that big.")

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#173

Post by dale_glass »

mikro2nd wrote: post #132
dale_glass wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which communication methods leak no metadata? All leak something, but there are differences in what and how much. > If two people are communicating, the message always needs to know where it's going and in most cases where it's coming from. Yes, but in this case it'd be actually better to use something like Signal. You want something that's plausibly used often, is always encrypted, and is used for random chit-chat…

> GPG just screams "an important conversation is happening" is just another argument in favour of all email being encrypted. And yes, there's side-channel/metadata still in the clear, and that's a problem, but still a smaller problem. The only crowd I know working on solutions to minimise/eliminate that problem is the Cwtch project (not product!)

> is just another argument in favour of all email being encrypted.

And that makes GPG unsuitable, because it's such a pain in multiple ways.

> And yes, there's side-channel/metadata still in the clear, and that's a problem, but still a smaller problem.

Absolutely not a "smaller problem". Using GPG in an actually serious scenario like in occupied parts of Ukraine is quite likely to get you imprisoned, tortured, killed or all 3.

GPG mail is only suitable for "polite society" -- situations where your only problem is to securely email documents and account numbers to your accountant, and nothing else.

And that's actually a very narrow application. It's trivial to run into situations where that becomes extremely inadequate.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#174

Post by soraminazuki »

c-linkage wrote: post #145
bbor wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Given: 1) How critical email is; and 2) Existing mandate of government postal services to guarantee delivery of physical mail to all citizens; that Government postal services should run a national email service free to all citizens. In the USA, email would be minimally covered by the same protective laws as physical mail (I don't know if the same protections are available in other countries). IMAP and POP or a more a…

I don't trust governments to handle our emails, precisely because it's critical. So critical in fact that government agencies were secretly hoarding them en masse in violation of the law.

Digital technology has given those in power a level of insight and control over people's lives that was previously unheard of in human history. That kind of capability is too tempting and dangerous.

We desperately need a way to separate key digital infrastructure away from corporate or government interests. Putting email in the hands of the government would further diminish what little digital rights we have left.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#175

Post by danaris »

piaste wrote: post #126
bbor wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

...Why default to restricting to a whitelist? If the government is giving you an email address, you should be able to use that as your only email address, that you use for talking with friends and family, etc.

If someone's abusing the privilege, then there can be restrictions added.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#176

Post by ChrisArchitect »

Owning your identity more than less by having control over your email domain is way more valuable. Yes you have to manage it and not "forget" to renew the domain but c'mon. (What about social services like mastodon and bluesky leaning pretty heavy into encouraging you to have your own identity domain and all on their platforms?)

As far as privacy yes maybe not having Eduardobautista123homeaddress.com is a good idea and something a bit less identifiable helps but you can make up some more generic names etc.

As for blacklists this problem is overblown. The big providers are getting better at accepting solid SPF and DKIM records for good deliverability and if you're not spamming you should be good. There's seems to be more of a problem anecdotally with corporate enterprise spam services that block custom domains more frequently just based on weak indicators like "unfamiliar" but I think as the trend is for solid SPF etc they will all standardize on that stuff.

It's just one of those things where if you're going to own it you have to own it. Manage it. Take care of it. But afterall, it is your identity and can stick with you for a long long time. I'm sure there's many of us who have had email addresses (that aren't fluffball69@hotmail.com) for decades now.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#177

Post by c-linkage »

l72 wrote: post #170
c-linkage wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given: 1) How critical email is; and 2) Existing mandate of government postal services to guarantee delivery of physical mail to all citizens; that Government postal services should run a national email service free to all citizens. In the USA, email would be minimally covered by the same protective laws as physical mail (I don't know if the same protections are available in other countries). IMAP and POP or a more a…

100MB for storage or per email? For storage, that is way too small. You can easily hit that limit in a few months of light usage. All my utilities send me PDFs each month, and that adds up quickly. Last year, while doing renovations, the contractor and I were sending PDF drawings back and forth. I would have gone over the limit on a single day. We need something that lasts a lifetime with full archival and backup.

With respect, I think it's cost prohibitive for the government to provide a free and unlimited service.

Your physical mailbox -- from which you get your paper spam -- has a fixed size, and every day (maybe once a week) you have to empty the box.

If we extend that into the digital realm, it makes sense for the post office to provide a similarly limited post box in the free tier, from which you can use POP to download your messages to your private mailbox for permanent storage.

For truly poor people who can't afford a personal server, they can use a web interface to access email, but they should delete emails (throw out the spam) to keep space in their mailbox.

If you want more storage, you pay for more storage. Right now storage on gmail feels free because Google are scanning your mailbox and building your advertising profile. The government has no ability to get advertising revenue, so you'd pay for it instead.

Finally, there is no requirement for citizens to use the government provided mailbox. Set up a mail forward to your favorite provider and you're done.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#178

Post by soraminazuki »

danaris wrote: post #172
soraminazuki wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that account termination is only one way email providers can screw you over. They can bait and switch, take your emails hostage, and start charging premium. They can put ads that look like legitimate emails. They can cut costs, and open your emails up to hackers. They can peek, censor, or tamper with your private emails. They can even impersonate you. Some people might laugh that away as ridiculous. Bu…

> Sure, using your own domain can open you up to mistakes. But at least, you're the one in charge. ...Of the management of the domain and the email itself. But if Google, Microsoft, or one of the other major email providers decides that you, someone else in your subnet, or even your ISP or VPS provider, is not following the rules they've decided are important, they can just...put you in a black hole. And you have no…

I'm not saying that you should host your own email though. Or that you shouldn't, for that matter. All I'm saying is that people should keep the option of switching email providers when things go wrong. Using your own domain is a requirement for that.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#179

Post by LightHugger »

oliwarner wrote: post #136

> One of my concerns is that, if I were unable to renew my domain … someone else could register it and start receiving my emails And what happens if your email provider does the same? What happens if they close your account because you were unable to login and they give your handle to somebody else? What happens when they suspend your account because you logged into something they don't approve of? TFA is a weak, sel…

It kind of sucks but domain registrars steal paid for domains from people all the time for nonsense reasons too.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#180

Post by ylee »

fmeyer wrote: post #40

Although I have my own domain for some mail, I've been using pobox.com for this and other reasons since 2009. It's quite cheap and safe redirect since it now belongs to fastmail.

>Although I have my own domain for some mail, I've been using pobox.com for this and other reasons since 2009. It's quite cheap and safe redirect since it now belongs to fastmail.

Same, both in owning my own domain name and using pobox.com. Customer since 1996 and primary email address since 1999 because my college address closed at graduation. Since then my email has been hosted at ISPs, at various other providers, and at a Google Apps site, but it doesn't matter because the pobox address never changes. My college address works again, but I've long since used the pobox address in too many places to mass migrate away.

Years ago, before it got "corporatized", Pobox's FAQs had one entry that went something like:

Q: How do I know you'll be around in the future?

A: How do we know you'll be? Ha, didn't think of that, did you?

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