{"id":913,"date":"2010-02-23T10:09:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T08:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=913"},"modified":"2010-02-23T10:09:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T08:09:37","slug":"how-important-is-your-email-address-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=913","title":{"rendered":"How Important Is Your EMail Address To You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Really it’s not clear to me if this is a generational thing or what, people tell me that email addresses are no longer that<\/strong> important to them, what with MySpace<\/a>, FaceBook<\/a>, and the like.\u00a0 Others just use SMS<\/a>, where their cell phone number is the important for people to reach them.\u00a0 For some, however, their email address is their identity, and their only means of being reached by friends and family.\u00a0 That’s true for me, at least.\u00a0 I’ve had the same sets of email addresses for about 12 years\u2013 one for work, one main one for play, and a bunch of others for special use.\u00a0 This is nothing compared to my parents, who have had (roughly) the same phone number for almost forty years.<\/p>\n

If your email address is important, here’s a question you should ask: is it important for you to control it from a legal standpoint?\u00a0 Why would you want to do this?\u00a0 Let’s look at a few cases:<\/p>\n

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  1. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides you your email address with your Internet service, be that DSL, Cable, or something else.\u00a0 What happens if you decide to change ISPs?\u00a0 Do you lose your email address?\u00a0 And do you care?\u00a0 Can someone else<\/strong> get your old<\/strong> email address, and what are they likely to receive?<\/li>\n
  2. You have a free email account from a service like Yahoo!, MSN, or Google, and the account gets broken into.\u00a0 The first thing the bad guy does is change all of the security questions that are meant to cover password recovery.\u00a0 How, then, are you able to prove to the service provider that the account was yours in the first place?\u00a0 Can you even get your old account shut down, so that the attacker can’t masquerade as you?<\/li>\n
  3. This is the inside-out version of (2): suppose someone claims you are masquerading as the legitimate owner of your account?\u00a0 Who do you go to in order to prove that you are the legitimate owner of the account?<\/li>\n
  4. Your mail service provider goes out of business, and the domain they have been using for you is sold.<\/li>\n
  5. There’s one special case I’ll mention, but let’s not try to solve it: you use your work email for all email, and you change jobs or are laid off.\u00a0 It’s a safe assumption that the primary use of your work email account should be work, and that you are taking a risk by using the account for more than work.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For all but the last case, you have a way of\u00a0 at least mitigating the problem by have your own domain name, like ofcourseimright.com<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 That is- go to a registrar that you trust and choose a domain name that will be yours as long as you pay the bill for the domain.\u00a0 However, is this just moving the problem?\u00a0 It could be if someone breaks into a registrar account that is not well secured.\u00a0 However, because you own the domain and the registrar does not, you are able to take at least some actions, should either your registrar not recognize you, or should your registrar itself go out of business (this has happened).<\/p>\n

    The hard part is finding someone to host your domain.\u00a0 This sounds like a royal pain in the butt.\u00a0 And it is!\u00a0 So why not just use your cell phone or a social network site?\u00a0 Cell numbers are at least portable in many countries.\u00a0 Social networking like Facebook is another matter, and can leave you with many of the same problems that email has, and more, as we have seen<\/a>.\u00a0 Similarly, many financial services that play with your money, like PayPal<\/a> and eBay<\/a>, rely on you having a stable email address.<\/p>\n

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    My online identity is tied to...<\/strong><\/p>