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Reasons to not use your own domain for email

• sschueller 3y ago
  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's switch and you should provide your family with access to your passwords etc. in case something does happen. - if you are worried about expiration, didn't one registrar just offer 100 year registration? Also the process is usually (for. com at least): domain expires, registrar removes DNS until you pay, usually 30 days, then the domain goes to retention where you can pay the +250 fee to get it back which I believe is another 60 days or something that you have to pay and get it back. I have had customers that I would remind over and over only to have them fall into retention and then complain about the fee but they got their domain back.
  • EduardoBautista 3y ago
    I didn't recommend an email host on purpose because that's not the point I was trying to make. I recommend iCloud since it's the cheapest paid email provider you can get if you have or had any Apple device. Fastmail is a close second.
    • EwanToo 3y ago
      Unfortunately if you stop paying for fastmail or your Google account becomes inactive, they terminate your account and the email address becomes available for a new user. I think the concern that your email address is subject to takeover is valid, but unfortunately relying on generic domains isn't the solution. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en
      • gmail_temp 3y ago
        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“
        • EwanToo 3y ago
          That's good to know, though I'm skeptical for the future and it doesn't appear to be in the policy itself from my read through. They'll have to tackle email exhaustion eventually, and so far they don't seem interested in add new alternative domains.
        • foresterre 3y ago
          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 and tell them this is not my account (you need to login to contact support, or know a username). The danger here is that many websites (not just Steam) assume an email address is "forever", and the same address can not be used by anybody else.
          • ncruces 3y ago
            I regularly receive emails sent to a person that enjoys using my email to subscribe to spam. I've also received stuff from another that used it for school and even their bank account. And if you think verification does it, someone used their phone number and my email to register to Uber. I'd receive all their invoices and stuff. I couldn't log in because that needed phone verification. And it took quite a few rounds of Uber tech support to get them to remove my email.
          • anon____ 3y ago
            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-Expired-subscriptions https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279581-Ex...
    • jacooper 3y ago
      Skiff free tier includes custom domains
    • Gareth321 3y ago
      I agree. iCloud isn’t great but it does the basics fine. It’s a big step down from Google but WELL worth the peace of mind. A few nice privacy features like Hide my Email and Privacy Relay (kind of like a VPN). Plus if you’re using Apple devices it integrates very nicely and makes full device backups quite seamless.
  • luguenth 3y ago
    About not being worried, that someone could read your mail in the case you're dead: Always bear in mind you're not writing mails to yourself. The other party writing mails with you, might not be that happy with third parties reading their mails. Privacy is not only about you
    • theshrike79 3y ago
      I'm still sad because PGP/GPG couldn't make the UX work for signing and encrypting emails 20 years ago. It's still a huge pain to do, even if you're a hobbyist like me. Encryption/decryption should've been a standard thing everyone does transparently when sending emails with one recipient. Multi-recipient mails should always be signed, automatically. Maybe some day.
      • dale_glass 3y ago
        IMO, GPG for email was mostly a mistake, because email can't be secured enough. GPG leaves all the headers exposed, and reveals who's talking to whom. That, right there, is a huge security problem. Turns out metadata is often plenty. And it can't even encrypt the subject, which is a footgun of enormous proportions. Picture a high stakes situation like say, a resistance member in the Russian occupied parts of Ukraine. Yeah, the Russians can't see what you're emailing about, but they can see that 3 people of a given village are sending encrypted messages to each other, and then there's some outside contacts. Gee, what might they be talking about? What conclusions should we make if somebody else also sends mail to this outside contact. Yeah, the encryption might be strong, but it won't do much to protect those people against the $5 wrench. GPG for email only works in extremely narrow scenarios, and that makes it a bad tool.
        • theshrike79 3y ago
          Which communication methods leak no metadata? If two people are communicating, the message always needs to know where it's going and in most cases where it's coming from. Not encrypting the email subject is an implementation detail really.
  • ralferoo 3y ago
    It was Wordpress that offered the 100 year thing, but I think that was more publicity stunt than practical service - it was cheaper than their offerings for companies, so clearly aimed at individuals, but few people would care about their "personal brand" blog for so long after their death, and those that would probably have an estate big enough that they have a company running it while they're alive. But in any case, AFAIK the maximum registration period for ICANN domains is 10-years into the future. I keep my personal domain re-registered at least 5 years into the future, specifically so that if I was incapacitated for a year, or randomly decided to go travelling for half a year, or whatever, I won't miss the expiry date. I've had this domain for over 20 years already, so I don't mind 5 years extra, because I know I'm keeping it. Basically, everything the article said. The domains for my company are all registered for 3 years up-front, and I try to renew them annually to keep at least 2 years before expiry, but I also know that if I died, someone else would either take over or wind up the company, and in either case they can deal with the domains as part of that, and if they have a long grace period, that's fine. And in terms of the privacy concerns of the article, I have several separate domains that I use when dealing with companies. For a long time, I used addresses based on my main domain name with the company name before the @, but I'd already blocked a load of addresses where the company sold their client list (even some quite random companies like recruitment agencies seem to get tempted by this) and decided to just move to a couple of domains solely for this purpose. They have no obvious relationship to my name, so they're perfect if the e-mail address was later sold on. To be honest, the biggest issue with dying isn't the registration of my domain names, it's that nobody else would even know HOW to get my e-mail from my private server. Currently, that's less of a problem than it might be as I use gmail as a client, so it fetches using POP from the various accounts on my servers, but if I died and nobody could access my gmail, it'd be a bit harder. That said, in the UK after you die, the executor of your will has legal authority to contact any company you had dealings with before and take over your account or affairs. So honestly, as long as I document my bank account numbers, and make my property deeds and will easily discoverable, I'm not really too bothered about anything else.
  • a254613e 3y ago
    Even if there is no option for 100 year registration, 10 years is pretty common[0]. Google deactivates an account and deletes all data after 2 years of inactivity[1]. So even if someone stops using the domain, all data would be deleted after 2 years, emails sent to it would bounce for ~8 years, and only then could someone take ownership of the domain. Even if you're using another paid service, your payments would fail, and your account would also be deleted before your domain expires. 0: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/renew-domain-name-2018-12-07-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/renew-domain-name-2018... 1: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290
    • murkle 3y ago
      ... and if you die when your domain has one year left?
      • pertique 3y ago
        10 years is just the maximum time a domain can be registered at a given time. You can keep adding a year for every year that passes if you'd like.
  • sshine 3y ago
    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.
    • Gareth321 3y ago
      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. Steam. Google (Maps, YouTube). Cloud storage. Social media. Business applications. Communications like WhatsApp and Teams. Thousands more forums and services you’ve signed up with over the decades. As more services utilise 2FA, all of those are at risk without access to the email account. Even if you can log in, good luck changing settings, passwords, or the email address. Everyone should buy and use their own domain. Losing access to Gmail is catastrophic. We’re talking hundreds of hours of effort and permanently lost access to irretrievable data, services, contacts, correspondence, one’s digital identity, and even money.
      • HeckFeck 3y ago
        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.
        • celeritascelery 3y ago
          I used to use YouTube Red and had a playlist of BGM that i would work to on YouTube. Then one day about 20% of the video’s disappeared due to DMCA takedowns. That was the day canceled my subscription and switched to getting everything I care about with yt-dlp.
  • ghusto 3y ago
    > Also you can add a dead man's switch This is something I've struggled to find a solution for. Do you have any suggestions? The best I've come up with is a safe with enough information to provide access to my password manager, but obviously this makes me pretty uncomfortable. I could hand it over to a lawyer as part of my will, maybe?
    • bboygravity 3y ago
      Bitwarden has this feature
    • buildfocus 3y ago
      Bitwarden has built in emergency access: https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/ https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/ That coves these kinds of cases reasonably imo: you can invite somebody, and then that person can later request access when that's necessary. That sends you a notification, and they're granted access if you don't object within a preconfigured time window. Obviously there's some trust required and/or a sufficiently long window, but it's one of the better solutions I've seen.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • mikecoles 3y ago
      Avoid Liberty Safes when selecting your safe. https://www.locksmithledger.com/safes/news/53071785/liberty-safe-facing-backlash-over-giving-reset-code-to-fbi https://www.locksmithledger.com/safes/news/53071785/liberty-...
  • nurettin 3y ago
    > If I die I don't care if someone else reads my mail, I'm dead. Mom, why did grandfather let others take over his online bank account and send his inheritance money overseas? He just didn't care, honey. He was a good man, but he simply did not care.
    • bruce343434 3y ago
      I think that scenario requires someone registering the domain and hijacking the identity a few days after death? Quite unlikely it seems.
      • mingus88 3y ago
        My mother in law’s bank account was drained within a week of her passing. Evidently someone at the hospital had to have been involved, although we never learned the vector. It’s really not a stretch to imagine a sophisticated attacker who specializes in identity theft paying off hospital staff for access to dead patient’s info, even phones. It’s the last thing on the families minds. We already know that insiders at cell providers are working with SIM swappers to compromise SMS verification. Why is it unlikely for hospital staff to do the same?
        • danillonunes 3y ago
          That's a very specific and small target to aim. Your victim not only has to use an email with their own domain, but they also need to have their domain expire at about the same time as they die. Wait too long and the family already had access to the bank through traditional means.
    • westernpopular 3y ago
      If getting access to your email is all it takes for someone to empty your bank account, you need to find a different bank.
  • tjpnz 3y ago
    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.
    • bbor 3y ago
      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.
      • tjpnz 3y ago
        Irrelevant. If my privately owned utility screws up they're still obliged to follow the law.
      • kwanbix 3y ago
        What nationalization has to do with what he said? They need to be regulated. It is outrageous that they can say "you violated our policies" and do not explain which policy and how.
      • piaste 3y ago
        There's little need to nationalize, since emails don't have a last-mile or natural monopoly issue. I think, however, that modern countries should provide all citizens with an official, public, mail address. Restrict them to only send/receive emails to/from a whitelist of publicly registered service providers with very strict personal data governance requirements (government, banks, utilities, medical services, higher education). You can let private companies continue to offer email addresses for everything else, anonymously and under whatever terms. (Much like how you can still buy a mailbox if you want, but you're always guaranteed to receive the mail at your address.) Just ensure that people aren't cut off from essential services.
        • 3y ago
  • Aardwolf 3y ago
    With an email service, your account can be terminated there. With a registrar, your account or domain could be terminated as well. So both have similar risk, so best strategy is to spread the risk and have multiple accounts of different types.
    • flagged24 3y ago
      The thing is, my domain registrar can be contacted by phone. They have a support desk. Google will give you the cold shoulder when you are flagged by their AI system unless you can create an outcry on social media.
    • edwinjm 3y ago
      A registrar terminating an account is very rare. If you stay away from dubious domain names (like disneyfanshop.com) and stay away from tld's from dubious countries, you're pretty safe.
    • remram 3y ago
      Your account being terminated with a registrar usually doesn't mean that you lose the domain. You have to find a new provider, and there might be some interruption of service while you do, but then your addresses will resume working. If your Google account is closed, your Gmail address is lost to you forever.
  • haneul 3y ago
    I tried to log into the “Ethereum” Minecraft account after many years of hiatus and discovered that I didn’t remember the password, and the associated gmail had somehow been deleted. I now use my own domain name for email.
• janandonly 3y ago
  > Another concern is privacy. Using a unique domain name for email stands out, especially when it has your name. I never really thought of this, but it's a good point. I'm beginning to trust Apple more to forward random email addresses to me. > One of my concerns is that, if I were unable to renew my domain (e.g., in case of death), someone else could register it and start receiving my emails. I also pay my domain name a few years forwards, just so in case I die, my family doesn't right away lose their email as well.
  • XorNot 3y ago
    If you die then someone has to receive your emails anyway: you're dead. Specifically the executor of your estate will probably need access in order to wind it up or direct things to next of kin.
  • jonathankoren 3y ago
    It it a good point? What’s the threat? How can you be “private” when you have a unique id associated with every email address? If you’re that paranoid, you might as well name your account bsuwbeu7262@gmail. But you could just have a goofball domain as well complete the du rigour registration privacy service all registrars support.
• trollied 3y ago
  > I am starting to use iCloud's Hide My Email to change my email address on accounts I have created over the years because of this How seamless is logging in on non-Apple devices?
  • EduardoBautista 3y ago
    Once you have Hide My Email set up, you don't have to log in again. I just forward to another email account that is not on iCloud. The unique email address I generated is saved in 1Password.
    • daft_pink 3y ago
      You have to pay for icloud for the rest of your life though. I personally had issues with Apple overbilling me and not fixing it, and have shifted away from icloud and it's a huge problem for me, because while most accounts will let me change my email, some accounts will not. I registered a throwaway domain for $10 and i'm using that domain that's the combination of two random english words dot com, and now I use simpleloginolyourall, but I own the alias domain and I can always redirect it with a catchall if I ever want to switch services or use the address with a different alias email provider. To be fair, it's not currently that bad, because the minimum price for hidemyemail is a few bucks a month, but apple can always change that and it's far easier to pay for a domain then when you want to switch email providers in the future.
      • EduardoBautista 3y ago
        From what I have heard, you lose access to reply to emails received through Hide My Email if you stop paying. You still receive the emails. When you use "Sign in with Apple" you use an anonymized email as well, and those don't require you to pay.
      • danwee 3y ago
        > You have to pay for icloud for the rest of your life though. Isn't that true for all email providers nowadays? I used to have free email inbox with my domain, but not anymore. The cheapest layer for iCloud+ is $1/month.
• l5870uoo9y 3y ago
  And furthermore using Google mail for business purposes doesn't have unprofessional stigma anymore, especially amongst younger people (naturally meaning under 50).
  • alias_neo 3y ago
    Using Google Mail sure, but using Google's domain sure as heck does. I cringe every time I see a business card printed with a gmail.com or similar, or on the side of someone's van. If you can go through the effort of registering a business and having a professional looking logo plastered all over your vans, business card etc, you can almost certainly register a domain for your email.
    • MrVandemar 3y ago
      Especially medical people with gmail, that gives me the heebie-jeebies. Pretty sure that's a privacy nightmare waiting to happen ...
    • dazc 3y ago
      Purely anecdotal from the UK, but it seems like the more professional the email address and website the more likely it is you're not dealing with a real trades person. Genuine tradespeople are often always fully booked months in advance and they don't want to be dealing with random emails all of the time, most of which will be time wasters. For regular businesses though, I agree, it looks bad.
      • alias_neo 3y ago
        I'm in the UK, and that's where I tend to see it most, on trade-person vans. If they've gone through the effort to get some nice logo design vinyl on their van, why not get a matching email domain for their "company"? For me, seeing a Gmail etc on the side of an otherwise nicely decorated van shows a lack of attention to detail, and that's not what I want in a trade-person, who typically I only hire for the tasks beyond my capability/skill level.
• alias_neo 3y ago
  One of my mail domain's can only be registered for a year at a time, which really bothers me, I feel like it leaves the risk of losing it higher than others which I can register for longer. I don't know if there's a way around it, but for the record, it's a .es domain, and I am not Spanish, nor do I live in Spain.
  • mrweasel 3y ago
    The Danish .dk domains have a nice feature, if you don't pay then they aren't freed right away, they are "quarantined" for a few months. In this period you're the only one who can renew it.
    • alias_neo 3y ago
      That's a useful feature; It's not impossible to be a little behind with renewal, particularly when it has to be done so often, a bit of a grace period for something so important should be a requirement.
    • dizhn 3y ago
      I believe all mainstream TLDs have this feature. In the past it used to be a nonissue when you renewed the domain in the grace period. Nowadays you just pay more but it still works. Don't do it with a very desirable domain name though. The registrar might decide to grab it for themselves.
    • tehlike 3y ago
      Unrelated, but couldn't find a better way: Is there a way I can reach you for a comment you made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34593834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34593834 Thanks.
• rkuodys 3y ago
  How is this any different with all other things? Like real address- someone will receive your mails. Your phone number - someone will get your calls and SMS'es, viber messages (doesn't require email login), etc.
• _xivi 3y ago
  Even though the points are sound, I don't agree with the conclusion. You're effectively giving away more freedom and putting more trust in services that can lock you out of your digital life.
• dkdbejwi383 3y ago
  The main reasons for me that I stopped using my own domain: - some sites will just silently refuse to accept addresses on unknown domains and signing up becomes impossible - worse, some sites accept it for sign up, but later on refuse to send a password reset - every time you have you write down or say out our your email address to a non-technical person, you are then obligated to host a mini Q&A on domain names and how email works
  • theshrike79 3y ago
    I've used a non-standard domain (@iki.fi) for a good decade or so, I've never had any of these issues. Was your personal domain a newer "vanity" tld one?
  • scooke 3y ago
    These are all the exact reasons to do it! -the more of us who won't sign up because they won't take our domain-bsased email the quicker they will see these failed sign-ups and the reason, and adjust. - hmm. Let the account go dead I guess. They pay for that. - great, the more ppl who understand, the better!
  • EspressoGPT 3y ago
    I'm just in the process of migrating from my own domain email to a "normal" mail address because of your last bullet point.
    • nicolaslem 3y ago
      This is very surprising as even my aging non-technical mother uses a custom domain and never complained once that she had her email address refused somewhere.
      • EspressoGPT 3y ago
        I recently gave my .io mail to a bank and it was rejected by their system.
• enasterosophes 3y ago
  I use posteo, which satisfies the suggested requirements of being relatively cheap and the domain does not belong to me. However, doesn't this allow a sibling to the described threat model? If posteo go bust, their domain could be claimed by someone else. Then, even if I change email providers, senders who haven't updated their address books will keep sending email to my old posteo address. I think the points in the linked post are interesting and worth thinking about, but I don't think the answer is never use your own domain for email. Instead, maybe, just think twice, and have an answer ready to the question of what happens to your email if the domain name is lost.
  • newscracker 3y ago
    Keep in mind that Posteo recycles email addresses after a few months or so once the account is unpaid and/or deleted. This means, unless you have a difficult to guess or uncommon email address on Posteo, the chances that someone else might intentionally or inadvertently get your old email address is higher. But I like the fact that Posteo allows prepaid credit balance in the account (but it allows only a maximum balance of EUR 60). That could help in keeping one’s address alive for longer.
• kristjank 3y ago
  I think that the article confuses privacy with anonymity. A gmail.com address does not stand out as much, but it is much less private than a self-hosted account on a domain and servers that I own and control. In my view, privacy is not about being inrecognizable, it's about having control over what aspects of my identity are revealed to the public. A custom domain (unless you're using your last name or something similar) reveals very little about you except maybe your pseudonym and the fact you probably run your own email. If you're looking for anonymity, email is a very bad place to start. That being said, I still use my gmail occasionally, mainly for things that need 100% uptime and can't ever get filtered by the recipient's spam filter. My doctor's appointments, electronic ID, for example, still have my Gmail set as a backup address, mainly to prevent me losing basic services in case of some catastrophic failure of my servers. Overall, running email yourself is fairly complicated, and probably one of the last things you ever want to do self-hosting-wise.
• EspressoGPT 3y ago
  I agree. Using a custom email sounds cool first, but sucks in real life when you have to give someone your mail address and they don't understand how to write it, what it means, how it works, and when it is rejected by the system they're typing it into. That's the reason I'm migrating back to a normal mail address.
  • mrweasel 3y ago
    The older I get the more I kinda regret getting a custom domain for my email. I do like that I can take my email with me if I want to change service provider, or I can do the hosting myself, if I really wanted to. It's nice to be in control, but sometimes, sometimes it would be nice to just have a stupid generic email account and not having to bother with hosting companies. There is a certain silly charm of being presented with a 20 year old Yahoo! Mail account or someone who insist that their Hotmail address is just fine. These people do not worry about email and that must be really nice. One word of warning regarding when using a custom domain: Be really careful about giving out email address to others. I have my own, that of my sister and one for a friend that I haven't seen i five years. The coordination required when/if you need to move providers due to e.g. cost or policy changes can be a nightmare.
    • tamimio 3y ago
      > but sometimes, sometimes it would be nice to just have a stupid generic email account Ok.. then have one then, you can have both you know, one generic and other with custom domain at the same time, use the generic one in the services as if you never owned a domain, and the other as if you don’t have generic, I don’t see the issue here.
  • vidarh 3y ago
    I've had my firstname @ my lastname .com for 25+ years now, and it's never been more tedious than repeating it once. People deal with other domains in e-mail addresses all the time.
• rspoerri 3y ago
  I dont see any reason from this post not to use a own domain. Only reasons to start using cryptography for emails to sign or encrypt mails. Unfortunately it still has not been standardized to use cryptography in mails. Only few custom, and (afaik) no by default installed mail programms support cryptography without plugins. Also the work involved to set it up and use it across multiple devices and plattforms is could need a big boost.
• traceroute66 3y ago
  > 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. The only thing you should NOT do is attempt to host your own email server on a home internet connection. Not only do most home ISPs (quite rightly, IMHO) block port 25, but also most home ISP IP ranges are on blocklists. To make it clear: Nothing wrong with running your on mailserver. Just don't do it on a home internet connection and then bitch and moan about how its not working !
  • Yizahi 3y ago
    What about blacklists? I read that it is a huge problem with custom domains.
    • akho 3y ago
      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.
      • Yizahi 3y ago
        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 domain with some provider like Protonmail or Fastmail?
        • 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
          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/ https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/
• fmeyer 3y ago
  Although I have my own domain for some mail, I've been using pobox.com for this and other reasons since 2009. It's quite cheap and safe redirect since it now belongs to fastmail.
  • ylee 3y ago
    >Although I have my own domain for some mail, I've been using pobox.com for this and other reasons since 2009. It's quite cheap and safe redirect since it now belongs to fastmail. Same, both in owning my own domain name and using pobox.com. Customer since 1996 and primary email address since 1999 because my college address closed at graduation. Since then my email has been hosted at ISPs, at various other providers, and at a Google Apps site, but it doesn't matter because the pobox address never changes. My college address works again, but I've long since used the pobox address in too many places to mass migrate away. Years ago, before it got "corporatized", Pobox's FAQs had one entry that went something like: Q: How do I know you'll be around in the future? A: How do we know you'll be? Ha, didn't think of that, did you?
• morjom 3y ago
  Privacy is when it is known somebody is doing something but not knowing what/how. Anonimity is when it is known something is being done but not knowing by who.
• extr 3y ago
  I've gone back and forth on this. It's frustrating there is no way to provide yourself a fully "grounded" digital footprint in the same way your financial footprint is grounded to the US legal system. AKA in a financial/legal sense if I am the victim of massive identity theft or fraud, locked out of all of my assets, I can physically go into a bank or police station and find a "throat to choke" to start making things right. But if you are completely 100% pwned online you are basically at the mercy of customer support! And email is the critical link in the identity chain. So you want to choose an email provider or domain host that has a findable throat to choke. For me I've tried to move most of my most critical accounts to a fastmail email address. Are they perfect? Of course not. But I pay them, so I know they won't capriciously ban my account without warning or recourse. I know if I file a support ticket someone will see it and get me on the right track. Moving to my own domain is tempting but as far as I can tell just adds another layer of trouble to this. Am I confident namecheap support will come through in a Very Bad Scenario? Kind of? Not really?
• _xivi 3y ago
  > most websites using it as a way to reset your password > Privacy... I am starting to use iCloud's Hide My Email to change my email address on accounts I have created > domain name can be the weakest link to accessing your online accounts Much of your stress points seem actually about using email for user accounts. I think the problem is more that we've abused emails, using them as a form of identification, partly thanks to data collection. This system has many flaws anyway, which is why moving forward, we'll (I hope) adapt other more suited systems for authentication.
  • AnonC 3y ago
    But it’s at least easier to get a new email address or have several (or an infinite number of them) compared to having accounts tied to a phone number. I’d actually prefer a system that uses email addresses as opposed to phone numbers.
• bad_user 3y ago
  Fastmail supports "masked email", a feature for generating random email addresses. This has 1Password integration and can be set-up on your own domain: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/4406536368911-Masked-Email https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/4406536368911-Ma... Even before this, Fastmail supported subdomain aliasing. Which you could have on any email host that has customizable forwarding. Including Google Suite (although with GS sending emails from such "aliases" will fail DKIM, not ideal): https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360060591053-Plus-addressing-and-subdomain-addressing https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360060591053-Plu... The effect is that you're not going to reuse the same email address. Granted, this may not help with anonymity when the address is reviewed by a human. But anonymity is getting harder anyway, e.g., Gmail requires activation via a phone call, so you have to trust Google to not share your profile. Once upon a time, Twitter was not releasing back unused usernames. But now they've announced that they are. Also, Yahoo. Gmail is well behaved, but it's incredibly frustrating to create a new Gmail username. Sooner or later Google will at least think about reusing usernames, and you won't have any control over it. On domains, I register my personal domain names for 10 years in advance. If I'd die now, my family would have about 9 years to take control, if it helps them in any way; and if not, then why would I care?
  • jsjohnst 3y ago
    > Including Google Suite (although with GS sending emails from such "aliases" will fail DKIM, not ideal) Not if you properly configure DKIM records for it… https://support.google.com/a/answer/177063 https://support.google.com/a/answer/177063
    • bad_user 3y ago
      I'm referring to a limitation I bumped into… Let's say that I'm setting up a subdomain, like masked.mydomain.com, and then set a wildcard forwarding rule such that I get all email for *@masked.mydomain.com. Let's say that I subscribe to some service with a username like: blue.velvet9573@masked.mydomain.com Receiving email on that subdomain is perfectly OK, the problem happens when you want to reply / send with such email addresses in “From”. For it to work, “blue.velvet9573” should be an alias defined in the Google Workplace admin. Otherwise, even though Gmail is perfectly happy to accept any aliases, the issue is that emails won't get DKIM-signed unless that alias is an alias defined in Google Workplace. And you can only have 30 aliases per user.
• dc3k 3y ago
  This got me thinking that I should pre-pay my domain for a few years at least. Namecheap is only letting me add one year though. Bugger.
• tamimio 3y ago
  > if I were unable to renew my domain (e.g., in case of death), While I agree about the “losing control” issue, however, when you own a domain you actually own it, not renting it, not lease it, It is yours, and unless you do something clearly illegal no one can just take it, an email in another provider however, they can delete your email with all its content anytime, and most of the times you can’t do anything about it because it’s written in a TOS that was revised a few months ago. > Another concern is privacy. Using a unique domain name for email stands out, True, but you can use a masked email with your own domain too, several services provide that, masked email -> your domain email, so you can have iCloud masked email sent to your domain one. Having your own domain as an email provides a lot of advantages, The top one is you are provider agnostic, if you don’t like X provider, just change your MX, SPF, etc. DNS and you are good to go in a few minutes, now imagine if that would be something@gmail and you wanted to change to another@gmail, You have to go to all the services you are using and signed up for (assuming you have a list of them say in a password vault), change each, verify each, and then update your password vault so the new email is used, good luck with a whole week work. Another big advantage of using your own domain is the concept of separation of concerns, If that site is breached, not only you will know faster than the site admin, but that email is only valid for that account, and useless elsewhere. Additionally, anyone who is using OSINT against you, will not be able to pull out all the services you are using/used with that email, that also works if you have masked emails. Just keep in mind, if you use your own domain try as much as possible to have a .com one, I noticed some providers (MS Exchange/Outlook) mark some domains that are not .com as spam. Lastly, emails are NOT secure, the protocol was not designed with security in mind, no matter if the provider is promising top notch security, it is not, the only time it is secure if PGP is used by both parties.
  • jsjohnst 3y ago
    > when you own a domain you actually own it, not renting it, not lease it, It is yours, and unless you do something clearly illegal no one can just take it Since when did something you “own” require recurring renewal fees or else it’s repossessed by the place you got it from. That is essentially the very foundational difference between a lease/rent and “own”. Further, “no one can just take it” is so clearly misguided and factually wrong which even a basic google search can uncover countless examples of it happening.
• kkfx 3y ago
  Reasons stated taken, now reasons to have a personal domain: - not being bound to a specific third party :: even if you do not host your mails with your domain you can transfer it to another vendor, without changing addresses, aliases etc so transparently for your correspondent; - mails and website, a single domain :: easy to reach you since typically mails are meant to communicate not to be secret tools for a selected cohort of friends; - since the domain is like a postal address, something a Citizen should have to be, well a Netizen need it as well, and it's the basic brick to form own digital life in a connected society, domain, mail, personal website, perhaps homeserver are the tools of the trade like a home, a car, dresses and so on are for the physical world. When I'll be dead those who eventually snoop my mails (that are certainly already snooped by gazzilion of third party at least in automatic ways for generic data mining, antivirus scan and so on) I'm pretty sure I'll not care... If I'll have heirs they'll be already instructed on what to do as for anything else.
• rekoil 3y ago
  The argument is mainly that "when you're dead you won't be able to renew the domain and someone can then take over your accounts". That argument can be turned around and argue the opposite, I feel very good knowing that while I'm alive I'm in control of ensuring my domain remains under my control. If I feel like I'm about to expire, I guess I'll probably renew for 10 years or something. Actually, that's a good idea, I'm gonna do that now, and just keep adding a year every year anyway, that way if I can't renew anymore, it's always at minimum mine for the coming 10 years.
  • remram 3y ago
    It might be a good idea to keep it at least one year under the limit that registrars set. If you ever want to move to a different registrar, you usually have to add (and pay for) an additional year, and you can't do that if you're at the max (often 10). I recommend 9 years.
• melx 3y ago
  On topic of death. Look into setting up "lasting power of attorney" (LPA), or your country's equivalent. When you're no longer here, probably the last thing your spouse/children/family will care about is a bloody domain and its associated email accounts.
• Neil44 3y ago
  Not really the point but all the grandfathered free google workspace setups I've been aware of have been phased out over the last few years, surprised the authour still has one.
• acatton 3y ago
  > Can you imagine if someone in the future got a hold of gmail.com? Good luck trying to talk to a human at Google the day you get locked out of your gmail.com account for "suspicious activity" (See https://uk.pcmag.com/old-hosted-email-providers/133220/not-even-google-employees-can-unlock-their-own-personal-gmail-accounts https://uk.pcmag.com/old-hosted-email-providers/133220/not-e... ) > One of my concerns is that, if I were unable to renew my domain (e.g., in case of death), someone else could register it and start receiving my emails. This is a serious issue because your email account is as good as a password due to most websites using it as a way to reset your password. Gmail won't help you here, since they will deactivate your account after two years of inactivity (See https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290 "When your Google Account has not been used within a 2-year period, your Google Account, that is then deemed inactive, and all of its content and data may be deleted") You could argue that, until now, Google has promised to prevent deactivated account from being reused. https://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/90016 https://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/90016 But with custom emails, one can do what I do. I have a registrar which allow for a pre-paid balance. I prepaid €500, this will allow automatic renewals a few years after my death. Also, using your own domain for email allows you to change providers when they jack up the prices on you with little notice. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36321783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36321783
• jsmith99 3y ago
  I own <initial><last name>.com and <first name><last name>.com and I'm paying for Fastmail, but I hesitate to give these addresses out widely. I can see many benefits to domain email but I don't want people to think this is just a vanity address, especially as I don't work in IT or have a business or website. I'm an accountant (not public facing) and I think my <initial><last name>@<well-known provider> actually looks more professional on my CV (although I wouldn't use it for actual work - I have my address at my employer for that).
  • yosito 3y ago
    > I think my <initial><last name>@<well-known provider> actually looks more professional on my CV It doesn't. It looks amateurish and unofficial.
• Jach 3y ago
  Gmail recently decided to start flagging just about all of my @custom-domain emails that I have set to forward to it as spam. No amount of marking 'not spam' has made it stop. Fortunately, a filter to make sure they don't go to spam works. And almost all of the actual spam is to the raw gmail address, not the unique custom emails I give out when businesses or new website signups insist on one.
• 8fingerlouie 3y ago
  DO use a your own domain. Advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Instead of being at the mercy of whatever email provider you choose, you're free to move your domain where ever you want, without updating "a million" senders. DO NOT host your own email server though. A couple of decades ago it made perfect sense to do so, but these days it's simply not worth the trouble. Instead use Google/Outlook/Apple/Whatever to host your custom domain and use their offerings with your custom domain. My personal domain is hosted by mxroute.com, which has served me well for a lot of years by now. Unlimited email accounts and the only restriction is storage, which i can upgrade. Very little downtime (none i've noticed). All that's left is to make a backup with regular intervals, which i to do a small local machine using imapsync, which then in turn makes backups of the emails (and regular data) to a local drive and a cloud backup.
  • tupolef 3y ago
    I've read that advice, about not hosting your own email server, every week for a few years now, but at least for anyone with a few years of self-hosting experience I would disagree. There is just a little more checkpoints than 15 years ago. Before, you needed to check your reputation on spamfilters, be careful of viruses and sending rates and dome basic DNS entries. Nowadays, check that your IPs are clean, subscribe to some monitoring for ip/domain reputation, host your own dns server and correctly use IPv6, DNSSec, Rspamd, Dkim, Dmarc, Spf, autoconfig/autodiscover. But when it's in place there is nothing special to update or debug. I would suggest to check ISPconfig as a semi-DIY solution.
    • 8fingerlouie 3y ago
      I'm not saying it's hard if you know what you're doing, but "correctly use IPv6, DNSSec, Rspamd, Dkim, Dmarc, Spf, autoconfig/autodiscover" is a lot of technology for simply sending and receiving email. Considering that emails are insecure by design, and any email will have at least 2 participants, and you have no control over where the remote participant sends/receives emails, self hosting for privacy concerns is also pretty much pointless, except of course if you encrypt emails, but then the server doesn't matter anymore, and you might as well just use a public provider. My argument is that by using a custom domain with a public provider, you will get almost all the benefits of self hosting emails, but none of the disadvantages. You're still in control of your domain, and even if your provider shuts down, you're just a couple of MX records away from your new provider.
• Brajeshwar 3y ago
  I’d say there are many better reasons to use your domain than not using one. But then, that would be just for a few and may not cater to everyone. For one, I always have a heightened sense of admiration for someone whose email comes from their personal or family domain, “Ah! A man/woman of culture.” Many have already suggested good ideas about death in the comments; here is what I believe. If you are a commoner like most of us, others won’t care enough to wait for your domain to expire and start reading your email. On the other hand, if you become significant enough that people and organizations are waiting to read your emails after capturing your domain after you die (and then lose your domain after years of inactivity), you would have already taken care of that in many possible ways - technically, legally, etc. I had used my domain (a personal .com) since 2001 and switched to a family domain (another .com) around 2005-2006. A few others use it as a family domain name, and it is expected to increase once the extended family realizes that we own a cool-family-domain-name. I’m hoping that it will likely live on after I die. Unless I die suddenly and live long enough to realize that my family’s younger generation believes in “not worth sending emails from our domain and use a generic one," I will start thinking of an alternative plan.
• quickthrower2 3y ago
  You could drop $38k on this https://wordpress.com/100-year/ https://wordpress.com/100-year/
• 72deluxe 3y ago
  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 https://github.com/mjl-/mox
  • tallanvor 3y ago
    Most ISPs don't provide static IPs for residential users, let alone support setting up PTR records.
  • mkroman 3y ago
    > v0.0.6 eh, I think I'll wait..
• Yizahi 3y ago
  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.
  • ajwilson 3y ago
    If you're hosting the email server yourself sure it can be problematic, but i've never had delivery/recieving problems with a service like Fastmail.
    • Yizahi 3y ago
      I plan to move to Protonmail, but debate about creating custom domain or not. Even regular protommail domain is sometimes banned (read in the news about several cases of this, for now only in the authoritarian hellholes) which is bad for sych critical service as email.
  • mingus88 3y ago
    Pay a reputable provider to host your domain and that is not a problem. I use protonmail and their sending reputation is fine. You really don’t want to be self-hosting your own email in 2023 and all the headaches that entails anyway.
  • probably_wrong 3y ago
    Like dieting and exercise, the trick is to start now to reap the benefits down the line. I've been hosting my own email for about 10 years now. I started using it just for throwaway accounts and I've been ramping up usage slowly ever since. By the time GMail blocked my account with no explanation I had a fully-functioning domain with good reputation ready to go.
  • 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
    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.
• BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  The best reason against it is the fact many website, because of stupid policies or incompetent engineers, will reject the address as invalid. Happens to me regularly and makes my life difficult. I still like better than the alternative though. I got locked out of google accounts twice in my life and had one other email provider close entirely.
  • anon373839 3y ago
    Really? There are millions of @companyname.com and @randomschool.edu domains. They can’t all have been whitelisted. Where are you running into this issue?
    • BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      It's very tld dependant. .com and .edu have been there forever, so there are no problems. But .xyz are usually spammy domains, so they are rejected by default. My personnal .email address is also often rejected because the tld is quite recent. The sites I have the most problems with are: - small shops - state own ones - public utilities Some bugs are not even pure rejection. E.G: my electricity provider, for the longest time, accepted my email when subscribing or using "forget password", but not when login. On site once tried to autocorrect my email (!), to "fix" the tld.
      • anon373839 3y ago
        Oh right, sorry, I hadn’t even thought about other TLDs. I wonder if the rising popularity of .io and .ai domains has shone some light on this issue? Though they are ccTLDs…
  • executesorder66 3y ago
    Agreed, but it depends which TLD you use. I used to have a .name domain which gave me trouble with less than 1% of every service I've ever used it with over 15 years. I switched to a .net domain for my email last year, and I would be very surprised if I ever had any trouble with it.
• dwheeler 3y ago
  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.
• happybeing 3y ago
  I have both my own non-identifiable domain which I use for email - and a domain of my own name which I picked up when the original owner let it expire. I had to bid to get it from a broker who squatted it but it didn't cost much. My namesake was a famous (in some circles) wealthy person and I did start getting his emails. Quite a lot initially, and I replied to let the senders know. That was probably twenty years ago and I'm still regularly invited to galleries for viewings as he obviously collected art. I gave up trying to get off those gallery mailing lists and now just bin them.
  • WA 3y ago
    > my own non-identifiable domain I have one too, but realized that it’s kinda pointless. If it’s only you receiving emails at your domain, it’s clear that if you sign up for a Facebook account and a Google account and a shopping website, that it’s always the same person. The advantage of big email providers is that it could be anyone. I just wouldn’t use Google. Fastmail offers email redirects like the iCloud anonymization service.
    • Bu9818 3y ago
      I agree. I would use protonmail or something else for signing up for websites, as a domain would be linked to me (unless I buy dozens of domain names anonymously). For Git commits or communication tied to my real identity, then yeah I'd use my own domain name. But for anonymity, nope.
    • happybeing 3y ago
      I agree that's a possibility, but I'd rather the chance some of those accounts get linked than give my data to Google. The reason I did that wasn't privacy in the first place, so any privacy benefits are a bonus. I did it so I can easily block spam from a business, easily 'unsubscribe' to any list without jumping through hoops, and can also see which businesses are not playing nice by sharing my data.
• incomingpain 3y ago
  Says the guy with his own domain for email. Intellectual dishonestly is wrong.
• oliwarner 3y ago
  > One of my concerns is that, if I were unable to renew my domain … someone else could register it and start receiving my emails And what happens if your email provider does the same? What happens if they close your account because you were unable to login and they give your handle to somebody else? What happens when they suspend your account because you logged into something they don't approve of? TFA is a weak, self-defeating argument against best practice. Own your domain, register it for a long time.
  • LightHugger 3y ago
    It kind of sucks but domain registrars steal paid for domains from people all the time for nonsense reasons too.
    • oliwarner 3y ago
      I think all the time is stretching. Reputable registrars selling domains from reputable registries do not generally do this. In in doubt, stick to dot-com Again, anything that could happen to you and your domain could happen to an email provider and their domains, on top of them choosing to lock you out, give away your address, downtime, etc etc etc.
• anotheraccount9 3y ago
  I recently discovered that some recruiters were excluding my resume, because my email looked "so good", that they thought it was a scam. They preferred something lime "joe.shmow.roleandposition@hotmail.com". Oh well.
• newscracker 3y ago
  I somewhat agree with this. I do believe that a larger provider is less likely to lose their domains than an individual is (there are always exceptions). Domains expiring is one reason why I always have my domains paid for 10 years in the future and renew every year to extend it by a year. I’d like to see service providers who work on a prepaid credit model (not a monthly or annual charge model, where the cards or payment methods may have been closed or canceled) and renew the domain automatically every year as long as there’s a balance in the account. Last I checked, even Cloudflare doesn’t allow prepaid credit balances to be used for domain renewals and insists on charging the payment method on file. And it’s not even the case that people haven’t asked for it. Cloudflare’s billing policies are weird. This is one of the reasons why I’ve avoided transferring domains to it. I wish ICANN would allow paying for domains (at least the most common TLDs) for a longer period though. If my domains aren’t renewed in 10 years after I’m gone and someone is dependent on those, there’s nothing much that can be done.
• FFP999 3y ago
  > Or should we implement regulations? I shudder at the thought. If OP reads this: why do you "shudder at the thought"?
• ChrisArchitect 3y ago
  Owning your identity more than less by having control over your email domain is way more valuable. Yes you have to manage it and not "forget" to renew the domain but c'mon. (What about social services like mastodon and bluesky leaning pretty heavy into encouraging you to have your own identity domain and all on their platforms?) As far as privacy yes maybe not having Eduardobautista123homeaddress.com is a good idea and something a bit less identifiable helps but you can make up some more generic names etc. As for blacklists this problem is overblown. The big providers are getting better at accepting solid SPF and DKIM records for good deliverability and if you're not spamming you should be good. There's seems to be more of a problem anecdotally with corporate enterprise spam services that block custom domains more frequently just based on weak indicators like "unfamiliar" but I think as the trend is for solid SPF etc they will all standardize on that stuff. It's just one of those things where if you're going to own it you have to own it. Manage it. Take care of it. But afterall, it is your identity and can stick with you for a long long time. I'm sure there's many of us who have had email addresses (that aren't fluffball69@hotmail.com) for decades now.
• hk1337 3y ago
  > e.g., in case of death You don't really need email in that case but this is why you organize your life to let those that come after you know what you have. > someone else could register it and start receiving my emails. They could still do that if you die and the executor of your estate decides to not renew the domain or email service. You're dead though, what do you care?
• JamesLeonis 3y ago
  The author points out real risks when running your own domain. When you host your own domain, you must treat that and its registrar as a risk vector like your inbox, including 2FA, locking domain transfer, auto-renew, backup email accounts, and update payment details. Like the author I too run my own email out of my domain, and I love the flexibility, but it requires vigilance. One serious issue is how much email became the de-facto identity of the Internet. This is the ultimate reason why all the above is necessary.
• 93po 3y ago
  I had to stop using my own domain and fastmail because I lost not one, but two very important job offers due to my emails not getting received. Not spammed, just outright not received. I also frequently (30% of the time) don't get "verify your email address" emails from websites these days when using my own domain+fastmail. I'm back to gmail and resent having to do so. But it's the only option to not constantly be worried about important emails not making it.
• ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  > Can you imagine if someone in the future got a hold of gmail.com? Google is their own registrar. The odds of this happening are, thus, effectively zero.
  • timbit42 3y ago
    I thought they just sold that business to SquareSpace.