4 ms·

I do want to use Fastmail, but their ToS are no better than Gmail i.e, that they can terminate your account any time for any reason whatsoever. Source : https:/

I do want to use Fastmail, but their ToS are no better than Gmail i.e, that they can terminate your account any time for any reason whatsoever. Source : https://www.fastmail.com/about/tos.html https://www.fastmail.com/about/tos.html This is the biggest reason I am hesitant to try fastmail.

marpstar 9y ago
At least with FastMail you'd have a phone number that will get you to a human to ask why.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  And your email account won't take down all sorts of other stuff with it.
- sitepodmatt 9y ago
  You have a phone number with Google Apps and support PIN in admin console, has anyone had any success of talking with someone that isn't a human version of a Twilio phone to email transcriber? That can actually get shit escalated whilst your on the phone or at least shortly after. The presence of a phone number means very little if they don't answer or one of those annoying press 1.. for then press 2.. blah blah A client was on Zoho business with paid support. Their phone number went to voicemail every single time, they called back four days later, great fun in an emergency. Stay away from them on the subject of email.
  - efreak 9y ago
    When I enabled Enterprise trial on Google apps to change the domain on my legacy free account, they called me to see if there was anything they could help me with. There was no canned responses at the time, they actually answered the couple of off-topic questions I had at the time, and were quite friendly. That may have changed since, or it may be an Enterprise-only or new-customer thing, though, and I've never actually called them up myself.
aibara 9y ago
Hmm, it doesn't say they can terminate you for any reason at all, but rather only "if you fail to comply with these Terms, or where required to by law," in addition to "non-payment, which is defined as failure to make a renewal after your paid subscription period expires." Edit: This is apparently a fairly recent change, they wrote a blog post about it: https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/09/11/tos-update/ https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/09/11/tos-update/
- enitihas 9y ago
  Thanks for the link. Now their termination criteria seem reasonable enough and I have opened an account. The interface seems really nice.
veidr 9y ago
But they probably wouldn't. That's the whole advantage of building up a business reputation over years (part of which is blog posts like these; another part of which is just not doing shit like that.) As a potential customer, I knew that Fastmail didn't have a reputation for abusing customers or capricious/erroneous/fucked-up account termination. That's why I chose their service, and today I'm a mostly-satisfied customer. I didn't and wouldn't choose Google for this kind of service because I don't have that level of trust in them (because, as we all know here, they not only can but also do engage in fucked-up account terminations all the time). Even if the Fastmail terms of service said "we will not ever terminate your account unless you are convicted of felony child abuse" they could always terminate your account by going out of business. So I get your concern, but that's really always a concern. You have to judge that risk, and the primary way to do that is by checking out a company's reputation.
- isatty 9y ago
  Yes but for some people the word "probably" is not going to work. They need to run their own stack with associated backups.
- enitihas 9y ago
  I understand your point, but prior to the recent update their termination criteria were really broad, basically on whatsoever reason your account could be terminated. Now they have modified their ToS and the termination criteria now seem reasonable.
ianamartin 9y ago
So, you're basically saying that you don't trust anyone's terms of service enough to use their email. You rolling your own, then? If so, more power to you. But let's be real, that's a damn lot of time that takes to do right. And if you're not doing it right, then why do it yourself. I don't love google, but google does a better job with email than I'm willing to do for myself. Fastmail does an even better job, in my opinion, which is why I pay them actual money to do that job. Could I manage all this myself? Sure. I guess. But I want to fuck around with other things. You've got to be in a weird situation where Fastmail's TOS is more frightening to you than Google or Apple or Micrososft's.
- morganvachon 9y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being downvoted (language maybe? But we're all adults here) but you're exactly right. Fastmail is a company that provides a service for a fee, it would be insane if they didn't have a TOS enumerating their rights regarding their customer relationship. If they didn't have the right to terminate service, the customer could do whatever they wanted (use the service to send out spam or engage in illegal activity) with no risk of losing service. If GP wants an email service that will let them sidestep the law, as you said, they can roll their own. I can't think of any other reason someone would be turned away by a sensible TOS.
- enitihas 9y ago
  I am saying the exact opposite. Their ToS were so broad prior to the recent update, that if you trusted their ToS, using their service was difficult to justify. Now they have switched to more reasonable ToS and I am giving fastmail a try. No amount of trust can justify overly broad power of termination. If they're never going to exercise that power, why to have that in the ToS. Considering how important a part of our digital lives email is, it makes sense to expect your account does get terminated only in rare circumstances,(when required by law). I am glad fastmail too realized this and updates their ToS.
staticelf 9y ago
When you pay for something, you are more important than when you use a free service.
- enitihas 9y ago
  Off course, but their previous overly broad termination criteria couldn't be justified by me. Now that they have updated their ToS to more reasonable terms, I am trying their service.
disease 9y ago
They did this to me. I signed up for a fastmail.fm account around 2002-2003. They presented their services at the time as a 'one time' fee - something like 20$ if I remember correctly. Anyway around 7-8 years later they announced that any customer that was using their services from the one time fee would be kicked off. They gave a warning of a few months but after that I lost all the email I had on that account as well as access to the email account. I don't hold a grudge or anything and feel I got my money's worth, but I just thought I'd throw this out there as information.
everybodyknows 9y ago
Are ToS enforceable for individual and small-business customers, in the US? What could we do, hire a lawyer and sue the provider? File a complaint with the, er ... new management ... of the FTC? Better to look first that the offer is a win-win business proposition from the get-go, with the provider likely to continue making enough profit to pay their bills. That way they have reason to continue providing quality service. There are a thousand ways to weasel out of a contract.

marpstar 9y ago

At least with FastMail you'd have a phone number that will get you to a human to ask why.

dingo_bat 9y ago
And your email account won't take down all sorts of other stuff with it.
sitepodmatt 9y ago
You have a phone number with Google Apps and support PIN in admin console, has anyone had any success of talking with someone that isn't a human version of a Twilio phone to email transcriber? That can actually get shit escalated whilst your on the phone or at least shortly after. The presence of a phone number means very little if they don't answer or one of those annoying press 1.. for then press 2.. blah blah A client was on Zoho business with paid support. Their phone number went to voicemail every single time, they called back four days later, great fun in an emergency. Stay away from them on the subject of email.
- efreak 9y ago
  When I enabled Enterprise trial on Google apps to change the domain on my legacy free account, they called me to see if there was anything they could help me with. There was no canned responses at the time, they actually answered the couple of off-topic questions I had at the time, and were quite friendly. That may have changed since, or it may be an Enterprise-only or new-customer thing, though, and I've never actually called them up myself.

aibara 9y ago

Hmm, it doesn't say they can terminate you for any reason at all, but rather only "if you fail to comply with these Terms, or where required to by law," in addition to "non-payment, which is defined as failure to make a renewal after your paid subscription period expires." Edit: This is apparently a fairly recent change, they wrote a blog post about it: https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/09/11/tos-update/ https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/09/11/tos-update/

enitihas 9y ago
Thanks for the link. Now their termination criteria seem reasonable enough and I have opened an account. The interface seems really nice.

veidr 9y ago

But they probably wouldn't. That's the whole advantage of building up a business reputation over years (part of which is blog posts like these; another part of which is just not doing shit like that.) As a potential customer, I knew that Fastmail didn't have a reputation for abusing customers or capricious/erroneous/fucked-up account termination. That's why I chose their service, and today I'm a mostly-satisfied customer. I didn't and wouldn't choose Google for this kind of service because I don't have that level of trust in them (because, as we all know here, they not only can but also do engage in fucked-up account terminations all the time). Even if the Fastmail terms of service said "we will not ever terminate your account unless you are convicted of felony child abuse" they could always terminate your account by going out of business. So I get your concern, but that's really always a concern. You have to judge that risk, and the primary way to do that is by checking out a company's reputation.

isatty 9y ago
Yes but for some people the word "probably" is not going to work. They need to run their own stack with associated backups.
enitihas 9y ago
I understand your point, but prior to the recent update their termination criteria were really broad, basically on whatsoever reason your account could be terminated. Now they have modified their ToS and the termination criteria now seem reasonable.

ianamartin 9y ago

So, you're basically saying that you don't trust anyone's terms of service enough to use their email. You rolling your own, then? If so, more power to you. But let's be real, that's a damn lot of time that takes to do right. And if you're not doing it right, then why do it yourself. I don't love google, but google does a better job with email than I'm willing to do for myself. Fastmail does an even better job, in my opinion, which is why I pay them actual money to do that job. Could I manage all this myself? Sure. I guess. But I want to fuck around with other things. You've got to be in a weird situation where Fastmail's TOS is more frightening to you than Google or Apple or Micrososft's.

morganvachon 9y ago
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted (language maybe? But we're all adults here) but you're exactly right. Fastmail is a company that provides a service for a fee, it would be insane if they didn't have a TOS enumerating their rights regarding their customer relationship. If they didn't have the right to terminate service, the customer could do whatever they wanted (use the service to send out spam or engage in illegal activity) with no risk of losing service. If GP wants an email service that will let them sidestep the law, as you said, they can roll their own. I can't think of any other reason someone would be turned away by a sensible TOS.
enitihas 9y ago
I am saying the exact opposite. Their ToS were so broad prior to the recent update, that if you trusted their ToS, using their service was difficult to justify. Now they have switched to more reasonable ToS and I am giving fastmail a try. No amount of trust can justify overly broad power of termination. If they're never going to exercise that power, why to have that in the ToS. Considering how important a part of our digital lives email is, it makes sense to expect your account does get terminated only in rare circumstances,(when required by law). I am glad fastmail too realized this and updates their ToS.

staticelf 9y ago

When you pay for something, you are more important than when you use a free service.

enitihas 9y ago
Off course, but their previous overly broad termination criteria couldn't be justified by me. Now that they have updated their ToS to more reasonable terms, I am trying their service.

disease 9y ago

They did this to me. I signed up for a fastmail.fm account around 2002-2003. They presented their services at the time as a 'one time' fee - something like 20$ if I remember correctly. Anyway around 7-8 years later they announced that any customer that was using their services from the one time fee would be kicked off. They gave a warning of a few months but after that I lost all the email I had on that account as well as access to the email account. I don't hold a grudge or anything and feel I got my money's worth, but I just thought I'd throw this out there as information.

everybodyknows 9y ago

Are ToS enforceable for individual and small-business customers, in the US? What could we do, hire a lawyer and sue the provider? File a complaint with the, er ... new management ... of the FTC? Better to look first that the offer is a win-win business proposition from the get-go, with the provider likely to continue making enough profit to pay their bills. That way they have reason to continue providing quality service. There are a thousand ways to weasel out of a contract.