6 ms·

I think there's an important lesson here that you can take home right now: If your primary email is an @gmail.com address, you have your head firmly in the lion

by sgentle 15y ago

I think there's an important lesson here that you can take home right now: If your primary email is an @gmail.com address, you have your head firmly in the lion's mouth. You can backup your data. You can have fallback tools and services. You cannot backup your identity. And if that identity is controlled by Google, you are tying your online existence for the duration to the foibles of a publically traded company with a shitty track record of customer support. Tell me with a straight face that you know Google won't mess you around like this - not just now, but for the next decade. Hell, tell me you know your account won't be algorithmically disabled tomorrow. If your last name isn't Gundotra, I don't think you can. Why, then, are you taking that risk when the cost is so small? .com domains retail for about $10/year, Google Apps Free Edition is here: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html - you can keep the services you like while retaining control of your email address. Disclaimer: I have an @gmail.com address that I'm suddenly realising is a sword over my head.

yuvadam 15y ago
How does this solve said issue? Using Google Apps means the big G still controls all your data.
- mikle 15y ago
  Data you can download, identity is hard to change. For example: I can download all my mail from gmail (using POP or IMAP) regularly. If I lose the account I still have my mails. I can't change the mail amazon (or whatever other site) knows about unless I have access to my gmail account (I realize you can probably talk to their customer support but it doesn't scale well at all. I have about 120 different logins using my @gmail.com address...).
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  He was talking about identity, not data. If google closes your account and you control your identity, you can take it elsewhere. If google controls both your identity and your data and then closes your account, you're screwed.
- lemming 15y ago
  If you download all your mail for backup purposes using, say, POP3 then if Google does nuke your account you can switch to hosting yourself and maintain your email address.
  - nhebb 15y ago
    This is what I do, but if Google ever fails me I'd probably switch to fastmail.fm or similar service instead of setting up a server. Unless you're interested in the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining an email server, it's something I'd outsource on a cost/benefit basis.
- benmccann 15y ago
  He's suggesting that if your account is shut down for some reason then your email address still works.
- dlikhten 15y ago
  Actually that works quite well. If your photo accounts, your whatever accounts etc are all tied to a non-google login, then it won't matter that your google account is gone. THE PROBLEM is that many places only accept google/facebook if not facebook alone. Although I have no freaken' idea why, it took a minute after adding google login to my site to add facebook, openid, etc..
mikle 15y ago
This made me concerned. I have my own domain which indeed uses Google Apps, but I just forward all my mails from there to my @gmail.com account. This needs to switch.
- maqr 15y ago
  I'm trying to avoid doing precisely that, but I want into Google+... I wish they would just add support for Apps domains.
- 1880 15y ago
  But you own your domain. In your case, if Google disabled your Gmail or Apps accounts, it'd be just a minor annoyance, because your e-mail address would still work after a DNS change. Google owning your data is not the problem here, while you can backup it. The real problem is them owning your identity.
  - shandrew 15y ago
    Do you really <i>own</i> your domain? You're likely dependent on a registrar where you're probably a $10/year (i.e. nearly nothing) paying customer. What if your domain registrar simply fails and loses your records? The US government has been seizing domains associated with sites accused of violating laws; are you with a registrar who will fight that? I'm not saying that you shouldn't own the domain for your email address--it's simply that you should realize that it solves one problem but creates others. Once you look at things at detail, almost everything in your life is dependent on trust. Knowing how much to trust different aspects and how to evaluate risks is key.
tesseract 15y ago
I have Google Apps Free for my personal domain and I am considering moving to the paid one, just to be able to phone them if anything ever goes wrong. (The Android remote-wipe feature that comes with it might be worthwhile too, just-in-case.) I also primarily use an IMAP client which saves a local copy of all my email, so although the "identity" issues (and non-email data) bother me a bit, I do have at all times essentially a backup of all my mail.
mrcharles 15y ago
The problem with having your own domain for email is the communication factor. When I tell someone my email is charles.lastname@gmail.com, there's no miscommunication. Worst case I have to spell out my last name, but generally if someone's asking for email they already have my last name. If you buy a domain, nowadays, you have few options with respect to getting an email that sounds legit, mature, and isn't long and/or uses easily misspelled words. I have a bunch of domains, but none of them are particularly appropriate for an email address I would verbally communicate to someone. bluh.org is my main domain, but when you say 'bluh' out loud to someone, you inevitably have to spell it. I once owned thereisnocharles.com, which was a goofy thing and I used that as my main email address before gmail came along. But it's long, and it doesn't sound professional at all. I guess we could all just use something like gmail as a simple forwarder service to our owned email addresses, but even then, it's not a foolproof solution.
- mrcharles 15y ago
  Also, no, it's not a matrix reference, it's a ghostbusters reference.
- mikle 15y ago
  i@yourname.com Solves the problem you raised.
  - mrcharles 15y ago
    Except it's an impossible solution for a lot of people, including myself. My name as a domain name is taken, and was taken long ago.
    - masklinn 15y ago
      On all available tlds? Really?
      - almightygod 15y ago
        well having me@lastname.ly would require you to explain "that's a .ly not .com" and therefore not solve this particular problem
nostromo 15y ago
Another thing to think about is OAuth. If you if you lose an account at Google or Facebook that you've used to sign into another site, you lose them too.
- yaix 15y ago
  Good thought. Will not using G OAuth and probably delete all photos from my Picasa, now that they were automatically moved over to G+. You never know what the automatic image scanner may think it has found in those photos that violates some G+ rules. I don't want to lose all my data in my G account, only because an automated scanner thinks my friend's face was a bare female breast.
tambourine_man 15y ago
I hope I'm wrong, cause I really love email, but I don't think many people will care about it in 10 years. Most don't care much about it anymore today. How can I reach you? You don't have Facebook!
chopsueyar 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles I thought you looked familiar.
econgeeker 15y ago
This, and the impossibility of resolving the issue, is why I don't trust google. I had my own experience with google unfairly preventing me from using its service-- one where I was trying to give them money-- and I realized they really don't have any customer support. This is why I trust Apple. They might be slow, or silent, but they've never left me hanging (and I've been a customer of theres for decades before google existed.) That said, my iCloud account is where media and non-essential information will get stored. If Apple disappears it one day, at most I'll have lost music and movies. But everything real lives somewhere I can control and backup. I use GMAIL, but with POP access, and I store my email locally. However, it is time to get off of gmail and move anyway. It is just such a PITA to manage your own email servers....but I expect a company that does it for a living will provide better support than a company where I'm the product rather than the customer.
naner 15y ago
This is probably a little hyperbolic. I have a gmail address and I don't expect it to disappear. If it does, however, I will still survive (after going through some temporary pain). I feel like you're telling me I shouldn't use a credit card because someone could steal my identity. Or that I shouldn't use closed-source software because my "freedom" is in jeopardy.
- endgame 15y ago
  I'd recommend you use Free software because when it sucks (and all software sucks), you have a chance of actually fixing it.
- jdunlop 15y ago
  It's not about cost, it's about being tied a large weight that could be thrown overboard at any moment. I went with a gmail account back in 2004 because I didn't want to be tied to my ISP. Now, all my services (ALL!) use my gmail account as a means of resetting my password. If they decide to take away my account, I will be completely screwed. What to do...what they need is the ability to have 2 email addresses for all services, so if I get cut from one, I'll just sign up for the other. Seriously, I don't even care about all the emails in my inbox, I will go on if I loose my 3G database, I care more about my identity.

by sgentle 15y ago

yuvadam 15y ago

How does this solve said issue? Using Google Apps means the big G still controls all your data.

mikle 15y ago
Data you can download, identity is hard to change. For example: I can download all my mail from gmail (using POP or IMAP) regularly. If I lose the account I still have my mails. I can't change the mail amazon (or whatever other site) knows about unless I have access to my gmail account (I realize you can probably talk to their customer support but it doesn't scale well at all. I have about 120 different logins using my @gmail.com address...).
mike-cardwell 15y ago
He was talking about identity, not data. If google closes your account and you control your identity, you can take it elsewhere. If google controls both your identity and your data and then closes your account, you're screwed.
lemming 15y ago
If you download all your mail for backup purposes using, say, POP3 then if Google does nuke your account you can switch to hosting yourself and maintain your email address.
- nhebb 15y ago
  This is what I do, but if Google ever fails me I'd probably switch to fastmail.fm or similar service instead of setting up a server. Unless you're interested in the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining an email server, it's something I'd outsource on a cost/benefit basis.
benmccann 15y ago
He's suggesting that if your account is shut down for some reason then your email address still works.
dlikhten 15y ago
Actually that works quite well. If your photo accounts, your whatever accounts etc are all tied to a non-google login, then it won't matter that your google account is gone. THE PROBLEM is that many places only accept google/facebook if not facebook alone. Although I have no freaken' idea why, it took a minute after adding google login to my site to add facebook, openid, etc..

mikle 15y ago

This made me concerned. I have my own domain which indeed uses Google Apps, but I just forward all my mails from there to my @gmail.com account. This needs to switch.

maqr 15y ago
I'm trying to avoid doing precisely that, but I want into Google+... I wish they would just add support for Apps domains.
1880 15y ago
But you own your domain. In your case, if Google disabled your Gmail or Apps accounts, it'd be just a minor annoyance, because your e-mail address would still work after a DNS change. Google owning your data is not the problem here, while you can backup it. The real problem is them owning your identity.
- shandrew 15y ago
  Do you really <i>own</i> your domain? You're likely dependent on a registrar where you're probably a $10/year (i.e. nearly nothing) paying customer. What if your domain registrar simply fails and loses your records? The US government has been seizing domains associated with sites accused of violating laws; are you with a registrar who will fight that? I'm not saying that you shouldn't own the domain for your email address--it's simply that you should realize that it solves one problem but creates others. Once you look at things at detail, almost everything in your life is dependent on trust. Knowing how much to trust different aspects and how to evaluate risks is key.

tesseract 15y ago

I have Google Apps Free for my personal domain and I am considering moving to the paid one, just to be able to phone them if anything ever goes wrong. (The Android remote-wipe feature that comes with it might be worthwhile too, just-in-case.) I also primarily use an IMAP client which saves a local copy of all my email, so although the "identity" issues (and non-email data) bother me a bit, I do have at all times essentially a backup of all my mail.

mrcharles 15y ago

The problem with having your own domain for email is the communication factor. When I tell someone my email is charles.lastname@gmail.com, there's no miscommunication. Worst case I have to spell out my last name, but generally if someone's asking for email they already have my last name. If you buy a domain, nowadays, you have few options with respect to getting an email that sounds legit, mature, and isn't long and/or uses easily misspelled words. I have a bunch of domains, but none of them are particularly appropriate for an email address I would verbally communicate to someone. bluh.org is my main domain, but when you say 'bluh' out loud to someone, you inevitably have to spell it. I once owned thereisnocharles.com, which was a goofy thing and I used that as my main email address before gmail came along. But it's long, and it doesn't sound professional at all. I guess we could all just use something like gmail as a simple forwarder service to our owned email addresses, but even then, it's not a foolproof solution.

mrcharles 15y ago
Also, no, it's not a matrix reference, it's a ghostbusters reference.
mikle 15y ago
i@yourname.com Solves the problem you raised.
- mrcharles 15y ago
  Except it's an impossible solution for a lot of people, including myself. My name as a domain name is taken, and was taken long ago.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    On all available tlds? Really?
    - almightygod 15y ago
      well having me@lastname.ly would require you to explain "that's a .ly not .com" and therefore not solve this particular problem

nostromo 15y ago

Another thing to think about is OAuth. If you if you lose an account at Google or Facebook that you've used to sign into another site, you lose them too.

yaix 15y ago
Good thought. Will not using G OAuth and probably delete all photos from my Picasa, now that they were automatically moved over to G+. You never know what the automatic image scanner may think it has found in those photos that violates some G+ rules. I don't want to lose all my data in my G account, only because an automated scanner thinks my friend's face was a bare female breast.

tambourine_man 15y ago

I hope I'm wrong, cause I really love email, but I don't think many people will care about it in 10 years. Most don't care much about it anymore today. How can I reach you? You don't have Facebook!

chopsueyar 15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles I thought you looked familiar.

econgeeker 15y ago

This, and the impossibility of resolving the issue, is why I don't trust google. I had my own experience with google unfairly preventing me from using its service-- one where I was trying to give them money-- and I realized they really don't have any customer support. This is why I trust Apple. They might be slow, or silent, but they've never left me hanging (and I've been a customer of theres for decades before google existed.) That said, my iCloud account is where media and non-essential information will get stored. If Apple disappears it one day, at most I'll have lost music and movies. But everything real lives somewhere I can control and backup. I use GMAIL, but with POP access, and I store my email locally. However, it is time to get off of gmail and move anyway. It is just such a PITA to manage your own email servers....but I expect a company that does it for a living will provide better support than a company where I'm the product rather than the customer.

naner 15y ago

This is probably a little hyperbolic. I have a gmail address and I don't expect it to disappear. If it does, however, I will still survive (after going through some temporary pain). I feel like you're telling me I shouldn't use a credit card because someone could steal my identity. Or that I shouldn't use closed-source software because my "freedom" is in jeopardy.

endgame 15y ago
I'd recommend you use Free software because when it sucks (and all software sucks), you have a chance of actually fixing it.
jdunlop 15y ago
It's not about cost, it's about being tied a large weight that could be thrown overboard at any moment. I went with a gmail account back in 2004 because I didn't want to be tied to my ISP. Now, all my services (ALL!) use my gmail account as a means of resetting my password. If they decide to take away my account, I will be completely screwed. What to do...what they need is the ability to have 2 email addresses for all services, so if I get cut from one, I'll just sign up for the other. Seriously, I don't even care about all the emails in my inbox, I will go on if I loose my 3G database, I care more about my identity.