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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

#111

Post by anon____ »

foresterre wrote: post #50
gmail_temp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citing from Google‘s recent email on account inactivity: ”After a Google Account is deleted, the Gmail address for the deleted account cannot be used again when creating a new Google Account“

For Fastmail, I could not quickly find their policy. However, I do occasionally receive some emails on my fastmail user address which are not my own, which may indicate that Fastmail user addresses become available after unsubscribing. The emails are from Steam, with 2FA login codes; I assume they only send those with prior email verification. With only the email address it is apparently not possible to contact Steam…

Unfortunately, Fastmail addresses are re-used "after a few weeks" the subscription ends. I lost mine like this.

https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279581-Ex...

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#112

Post by climb_stealth »

foresterre wrote: post #50
gmail_temp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citing from Google‘s recent email on account inactivity: ”After a Google Account is deleted, the Gmail address for the deleted account cannot be used again when creating a new Google Account“

For Fastmail, I could not quickly find their policy. However, I do occasionally receive some emails on my fastmail user address which are not my own, which may indicate that Fastmail user addresses become available after unsubscribing. The emails are from Steam, with 2FA login codes; I assume they only send those with prior email verification. With only the email address it is apparently not possible to contact Steam…

Fastmail allows to reuse the email when an account is closed. Just before looking this up I tended to be very strongly pro fastmail. Have been using them for years as well. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Because reusing email addresses is quite sketchy :/

> Once an account has been deleted, the username and any addresses on the account can be re-used.

https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277342-Ca...

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#113

Post by wccrawford »

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.

I worried about this before setting up email on my domain, but in the end, it hasn't been a problem yet. And if it ever is, I can just use my gmail account for that thing only. I've already got it forwarding to my new email anyhow, so it doesn't make much difference in the long run.

I've been slowly converting accounts over to the new email for about a year now I think.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#114

Post by HeckFeck »

Gareth321 wrote: post #79
sshine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The day I worried "What if Google just shuts down my email account with no recourse?" is the day I started migrating my authentication to my own domain email address. Choosing a registrar with proper security in place, this is probably the safest while you are alive.

I’ve read so many accounts of users and whole companies being permanently shut out of their Google accounts that I couldn’t justify the risk any longer. Google genuinely does not care. The number of critical services which rely on our email address is really difficult to grasp until one goes through the exercise of converting to their own domain. Banks. Trading platforms. Phones and computers. Windows. Game consoles.…

For corporate use, only choose an email provider that has real people at a manned help desk. Google's abysmally opaque support is much too risky for serious business operations.

It is a right blighter if you lose your personal YouTube account with all its carefully curated meme playlists, but at least you aren't missing out on vital business communications.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#115

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

Yizahi wrote: post #106
akho wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dom…

Services like Fastmail provide clear step-by-step instructions on what you need to configure. Typically you need to add some DNS records (MX, SPF, DMARC, DKIM), and that's it. It sounds way worse than it is and it takes 10 minutes tops if you've never done it before, less if you know what you're doing.

Getting out of blacklists is you email provider's problem, not yours. I've never heard of any domain owner who is not hosting their own server run into this. I can see it happening if you use the same domain for your servers, one of them gets compromised and starts sending lots of spam. So you should probably avoid using your personal domains for your servers, and definitely skip crappy TLDs like .xyz, and you'll be fine:

https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#116

Post by bbor »

tjpnz wrote: post #110
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.

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.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#117

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

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.

I've been using several domains for years and it's a non-issue. Some of them are located in the worst TLDs possible: the cost free .tk and .cf. No delivery issues whatsoever because I use decent email providers and don't spam.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#118

Post by Borg3 »

tjpnz wrote: post #110
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.

[flagged]

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#119

Post by tallanvor »

72deluxe wrote: post #93

Use mox on your own Raspberry Pi at home! Get your ISP to set up a PTR record for your static IP and enjoy email free of fear of losing it: https://github.com/mjl-/mox

Most ISPs don't provide static IPs for residential users, let alone support setting up PTR records.

Re: Reasons to not use your own domain for email

#120

Post by dwheeler »

Sorry, I think this advice is exactly wrong.

Email service providers can also disappear, or shut down your account without recourse. By contrast, if a domain registrar shuts down, you can use another without impact to anyone else, and there are strong protections.

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