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The story drives home how dangerous it is putting your trust, maybe your business and maybe your life in the hands of these mega corporations. I've tried to dis

The story drives home how dangerous it is putting your trust, maybe your business and maybe your life in the hands of these mega corporations. I've tried to distance myself from Google somewhat but Gmail is still my main email account. I don't want to know how many accounts I may be locked out of if I ever lose access to it.

fsflover 5y ago
It took me a couple years to transfer all important online accounts to a new email, one by one. I feel free now.
todd3834 5y ago
If you really are concerned then you might want to consider migrating away now while you still have access for those situations.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  At least getting a new email address, pointing it to Gmail, and working to migrate
  - randallsquared 5y ago
    GMail has the same problem, of course. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - pronlover723 5y ago
      I think the suggestion was to get your own domain. You can use gmail as a service and if they kick you off you still own your domain and your email address. If you're smart you might backup the email. That's fairly easy to do.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        And if your domain registrar decides to ban you for whatever reason?
        lostcolony 5y ago
        In the extremely unlikely event that happens (provided you pick a registrar whose only service you're using is DNS), then you transfer it to another one, as mandated by ICANN. You're down a week, but everything is fine after that. Quit being contrarian.
        JanisL 5y ago
        It's a bit like getting struck by lightning, you deal with this when it happens if it happens. This is sufficiently unlikely for most people that it's not worth being too concerned about it when other exceedingly more dangerous and pressing matters could be dealt with using that same energy.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        Yep. Ideally you get some sort of actual paid email account, with someone that only provides email (so you don't have issues elsewhere that lead to loss of email account), and then you get your own domain (with no other services that you're using), and forward your gmail to that domain, and point your personal domain's MX records to the new email address, and start using an email address on your personal domain from here on out, but failing the separate email, at least getting a domain and pointing an email address to your current Gmail account, and starting to use that new address instead, gives you a migration path to reduce your reliance on Gmail.
throw_m239339 5y ago
Absolutely buy your own domain name and use an email service where you can use your own domain as an email address, period. I can't tell you how many horror stories I have heard about people getting permanently locked out of their gmail accounts that served as email address for password recovery and what not. And I have some horror stories of my own.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  How do you prevent the registration services from losing (not renewing) your domain and having someone else register it? This happened to me, and there was no recourse.
  - throwaway984393 5y ago
    Select a highly reputable registrar with good business practices. Pick a couple, then buy a super cheap domain and try to screw with it, like doing a transfer with no authorization. A horrifying number of them will let you get away with it.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    Confused, how did that happen to you? Doesn't every registrar support renewal? Did they pretend to renew but they actually didn't? Did you get a receipt for it?
    - gzer0 5y ago
      https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8833/dark-fail-fake-court-order-dark-web-markets https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8833/dark-fail-fake-court-... It is rare, but it can happen. Another threat vector.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Registrar issue, if I remember correctly. It was set to auto renew, but they didn’t do it, and I only noticed when my site was suddenly a placeholder page.
WWLink 5y ago
The best part is that they could get locked out of anything they have "find my" enabled on. Imagine that. "oh you broke the TOS, now all your apple devices are bricks"
sneak 5y ago
There is a solution. https://sneak.berlin/20201029/stop-emailing-like-a-rube/ https://sneak.berlin/20201029/stop-emailing-like-a-rube/

fsflover 5y ago

It took me a couple years to transfer all important online accounts to a new email, one by one. I feel free now.

todd3834 5y ago

If you really are concerned then you might want to consider migrating away now while you still have access for those situations.

lostcolony 5y ago
At least getting a new email address, pointing it to Gmail, and working to migrate
- randallsquared 5y ago
  GMail has the same problem, of course. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - pronlover723 5y ago
    I think the suggestion was to get your own domain. You can use gmail as a service and if they kick you off you still own your domain and your email address. If you're smart you might backup the email. That's fairly easy to do.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      And if your domain registrar decides to ban you for whatever reason?
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        In the extremely unlikely event that happens (provided you pick a registrar whose only service you're using is DNS), then you transfer it to another one, as mandated by ICANN. You're down a week, but everything is fine after that. Quit being contrarian.
      - JanisL 5y ago
        It's a bit like getting struck by lightning, you deal with this when it happens if it happens. This is sufficiently unlikely for most people that it's not worth being too concerned about it when other exceedingly more dangerous and pressing matters could be dealt with using that same energy.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      Yep. Ideally you get some sort of actual paid email account, with someone that only provides email (so you don't have issues elsewhere that lead to loss of email account), and then you get your own domain (with no other services that you're using), and forward your gmail to that domain, and point your personal domain's MX records to the new email address, and start using an email address on your personal domain from here on out, but failing the separate email, at least getting a domain and pointing an email address to your current Gmail account, and starting to use that new address instead, gives you a migration path to reduce your reliance on Gmail.

throw_m239339 5y ago

Absolutely buy your own domain name and use an email service where you can use your own domain as an email address, period. I can't tell you how many horror stories I have heard about people getting permanently locked out of their gmail accounts that served as email address for password recovery and what not. And I have some horror stories of my own.

Aeolun 5y ago
How do you prevent the registration services from losing (not renewing) your domain and having someone else register it? This happened to me, and there was no recourse.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  Select a highly reputable registrar with good business practices. Pick a couple, then buy a super cheap domain and try to screw with it, like doing a transfer with no authorization. A horrifying number of them will let you get away with it.
- dataflow 5y ago
  Confused, how did that happen to you? Doesn't every registrar support renewal? Did they pretend to renew but they actually didn't? Did you get a receipt for it?
  - gzer0 5y ago
    https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8833/dark-fail-fake-court-order-dark-web-markets https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8833/dark-fail-fake-court-... It is rare, but it can happen. Another threat vector.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Registrar issue, if I remember correctly. It was set to auto renew, but they didn’t do it, and I only noticed when my site was suddenly a placeholder page.

WWLink 5y ago

The best part is that they could get locked out of anything they have "find my" enabled on. Imagine that. "oh you broke the TOS, now all your apple devices are bricks"

sneak 5y ago

There is a solution. https://sneak.berlin/20201029/stop-emailing-like-a-rube/ https://sneak.berlin/20201029/stop-emailing-like-a-rube/