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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)

#251

Post by account42 »

kingds wrote: post #87
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…

but if you stop renting from the registrar then whoever rents the domain next gets access to your email. seems like a horrible solution to this problem. at least i can be reasonably confident that google will never recycle my email address and send all incoming mail to a rando.

> at least i can be reasonably confident that google will never recycle my email address and send all incoming mail to a rando.

What do you base that confidence on? Short, meaningful names are valuable and there is no reason to believe that somewhere down the line they won't be recycling ones that aren't used anyway as premium accounts.

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

#252

Post by account42 »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #194
kornhole wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandi.net gives you two mailboxes with unlimited aliases in France for every domain you rent. This is a very easy alternative for most people who cannot run a mail server.

I used Gandi for exactly this purpose years ago. Then emails from certain popular domains suddenly stopped getting through to me. When I complained, they told me in somewhat vague language to use a proper email service instead of a free add-on to a cheap domain plan.

> a cheap domain plan.

Gandi isn't even cheap really.

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

#253

Post by account42 »

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #8
vaagen wrote: post #6

The problem with several of these email subscriptions is that they will reissue your email address to another if you leave them, with all the risks that entails. The answer is to buy and use your own domain or get someone else to do it.

This is a good idea but in practice it just shifts the problem onto the domain registrar. Maybe/hopefully they are friendlier than email provider but if you do Gmail vs Google Domains, what's the difference?

> if you do Gmail vs Google Domains, what's the difference?

Google Domains has (at least in theory) the option to transfer the domain to another registrar. Gmail does not let you transfer the email to annother mail provider (because that would be impossible).

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

#254

Post by account42 »

zinekeller wrote: post #159
brewdad wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may not reissue it immediately but I am not aware of any mainstream email provider that promises to never reuse an identity.

> I am not aware of any mainstream email provider that promises to never reuse an identity. Google: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/56256 In contrast, Microsoft only waits a year before recycling email addresses.

That only states that you currently can't get past names using the normal signup pocess. It makes no promises about the future and does not guarantee that there is no separate VIP signup process that has fewer restrictions.

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

#255

Post by account42 »

alangibson wrote: post #131

Email should be considered legally equal to physical mail. It should be regulated by the USPS. Just like a company can't yank your ability to send snail mail, they shouldn't be able to yank your ability to send electronic mail.

I definitely would not want my mail to be regulated by Deutsche Post AG so this only works for countries that are not already prone to privatizing their essential services.

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

#256

Post by account42 »

d2wa wrote: post #211
bartq wrote: post #81

Is there email counterpart of HTTP 301? This could be the solution. But it would have to be much more secure and would require human confirmations to make the "301" to take the effect.

Email relay and email forwarding filters. However, it’s up to the email service provider to handle this. Which is out of your control.

It's also not really equivalent since there is no feedback to the sender that the canonical address for the user has changed.

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

#257

Post by cx42net »

Shameless plug here, but that is the purpose of [ImprovMX](https://improvmx.com). We forward emails from a custom domain to a destination email that can be updated.

My personal email is contact@{custom domain} and currently points to Gmail because I never took the hassle to change it, but if someday I decide to move elsewhere (I'm contemplating Fastmail and Protonmail), all I will have to do is update my destination email at ImprovMX and that's all.

This is a liberty that only us, tech people, can grasp. My parents, even my wife, doesn't see the importance of being locked to mail provider.

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

#258

Post by npteljes »

account42 wrote: post #250
npteljes wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to trust a third party company either way, so I don't think you're closer by having the domain, from a trust / vulnerability standpoint. In fact I think that email is best hosted by specialists with experience - and I'm saying this after hosting email for quite some time.

Domains are much less of a wild west than accounts at a mail provider. Whil you do need to go through a private registrar, that registrar has to follow certain rules including letting you transfer the domain to another registrar. This is a good reason for not using any of the new vanity gTLDs though as they can make their own rules unlike old gTLD (which are regulated much more closely by ICANN) and ccTLDs (which are…

The domain situation is something that I don't have a good understanding on, and part of the reason why I outsource the responsibility to a third party email provider - namely that they will do a better job protecting their own domain, than I'd do protecting mine.

I understand that some domains carry some legal attachment. That the new vanity domains are not as trustworthy as others, some are even filtered, as email validators reject it for not being a "valid" address even. Some TLDs need to have a business registered on a location, etc. And I understand that the oldest ones (com, org, net) are among the most universally accepted. But I don't know what carries greater risk: 1. me losing control over my domain, or 2. me losing access to my email account (Posteo in particular - I wouldn't just trust any email provider).

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