Gmail

[taxxcpa]

G mail

My wife's computer has been having the problem of blank pages when she logs into GMail, but it works OK on my computer.
She has to delete all cookies, then she can load GMail. Some cookie must sneak in a problem with gmail.

[Koss]

E-mail Security

You make good points regarding email. I have considered getting my own domain name also, but have just not pulled the trigger yet.

Another thing to consider though. Is any email account 100% secure? Even with your own domain name, whoever is hosting it could possibly read your email, couldn't they?

Like I said before though, you make some good points here about email in general. Excellent post.

I certainly agree that no e-mail account is totally secure. But I think you get a lot more control, and a lot more choices, when you own the domain name. At least in theory, you could set up your own server. Yes, you would still somehow need to connect to the internet backbone. Unless you want to invest an awful lot of money, you will always be somehow at the mercy of some service provider. We are certainly still at the mercy of service providers for things like electricity and natural gas. Unless you want to invest in things like solar panels or windmills...

I guess what bothers me about the free email services and those that are part of your subscription to an ISP is that you have a much lesser degree of ownership or title to the e-mail account, and even the content.

I'll readily concede that in certain ways, it doesn't matter whether you have a gmail account, a roadrunner e-mail address, or your own domain name. If Homeland Security, or the FBI, or the Criminal Investigation Division of IRS, or even a local county prosecutor really wants to read your e-mail, and they have a good reason to do so, then gmail, roadrunner, or your domain host may cave in response to a subpoena. And if it's a criminal case, they may not be required to tell you about it until after the fact.

But with your own domain name, there may be a greater degree of protection from hackers, who aren't so much interested in the content of your e-mail, but other things they can do if they can break into the account--like hijack your e-bay account or even your online bank account.

With your own domain name, where you pay monthly or annually for the e-mail account itself, the host is more likely to provide assistance, live, right over the phone, if you are having problems. And even if the problems are not on the host end, the host usually has a backup server that can probably recover some of your e-mail if you have a catastrophic failure.

But backup servers are a double edged sword. With your own domain name, you have a greater degree of control over how long e-mail is retained after it is deleted.

I hate to say this, but most of don't even think about this stuff. Sometimes you might want to make sure certain files and messages are really erased, so that they aren't available through discovery proceedings. But in other cases, you might want to make sure some stuff is saved for a certain period of time, in order to comply with some sort of document retention policy or litigation hold.

I think that the law is still evolving with respect to the nature of the ownership interest, and the type of title, that one has in a free e-mail account, and even an e-mail account that is associated with your ISP, such as a roadrunner address.

A 22-year old in college, for example, may be using a roadrunner address that is associated with monthly internet service that is part of an account in his father's name. What happens if dad dies or becomes incompetent? Is there a process for transferring an existing account without deleting mail that may be on the server? The service can't continue indefinitely in the name of a deceased person...

To some degree, this is still uncharted territory. What about the other e-mail address on the account, that was actually used by dad before he died? Does the family have any right to read that mail? Is the content something that a person can dispose of through a will?

Tech-savvy family members will quietly hack the account using dad's SSN, date of birth, or other info before they inform Roadrunner that the person is gone. But even that has its limits. If dad had something to hide, like maybe e-mail messages to a lover or something, he may have set up barriers such as security questions with answers that even the immediate family may not know or be able to guess.

With free email accounts, it's even worse, because the accounts are often set up with fictitious names, making it difficult or impossible to establish who the real owner is even while they are alive. Yes, I know you can use IP addresses and other technology to trace it back to a certain point. But all that stuff has limitations.

When you own the domain name, I think you have a much more solid legal basis on which you can stake a genuine claim of ownership of the e-mail address as well as any messages or other content on the server.

And when you pay a specific price for the e-mail account, as opposed to a free service, or an e-mail account that is "bundled" with your internet connection, it makes it a lot easier to pursue a claim for damages if the host server fails, or if your account becomes inaccessible as a result of their negligence.

Even if their disclaimers are valid, and they cannot be held liable for indirect or consequential damages, or loss of income, they still have a much greater incentive to keep the servers up and running properly when customers are paying a monthly or annual fee for the e-mail service itself.

Your damages may be limited to the cost of the service. But what is the dollar value of that service for a free account like Yahoo or Gmail? Zero. What about an e-mail account that is part of your 44.95 per month Roadrunner service? Well, gee... if you choose not to use the e-mail account, does the service get any cheaper? No... The price is the same whether you use the e-mail account or not. So there is no specific monthly cost that is tied directly to the e-mail account.

Even if you use a bargain service that bills you only $9.99 per year for an e-mail account on your own domain, the cost anchors your account to a concrete value. And if a server crashes and leaves 200,000 people without access to those accounts, the host has real exposure to a class action lawsuit if they were negligent, or if they don't make a reasonable effort to remedy the failure, in a reasonable period of time.

That sort of exposure isn't there for providers of free e-mail or e-mail accounts that are bundled with other services.

Like I said in the title of my original post... you get what you pay for. You can't get a refund for something that was free, or "included at no extra charge."

Burton M. Koss
koss@usakoss.net

[FEDUKE404]

One other possibility

I seem to recall reading recently that part of the problem may be related to that "wonderful" Vista software.

For those of you encountering/not encountering problems, is that consistent with your recent use?

(Sorry...I'm still running XP Media but do have a Vista CD-ROM in the box.....where it will stay!)

FE

[geekgirldany]

Every business should have their own domain name now. It is so cheap. $10 bucks per year. Most of the domain name registers have email hosting only and will do a better job of cleaning out the spam. I do website design as a side line business and actually own a server. I only put my clients on there. So they get pretty good service as compared to somewhere else. Email issues can be a bit aggravating

On the Gmail/Google side. Well they have also included Google Desktop with QuickBooks beginning last year. So now it can not only read your email but every other file on your computer. Don't install it!