Don't Let Personal Domains Expire

March 5th, 2022
tech
It's common to see advice along these lines:
Don't build your stuff in someone else's sandbox. Get your own domain and point it to whatever service you choose to use. Your email address should be @yourdomain, where you have full control and no one can lock you out. Don't fall into the trap of digital sharecropping.
There are complicated tradeoffs here and different choices will make sense for different people, but it's close to what I do personally. My writing and projects are hosted on my own domain [1] and my email is jeff@jefftk.com.

On the other hand, I don't think this is something to do lightly. Say you register you.example and start going by you@you.example. A few years later you decide this is too much hassle, switch to using you@fastmail.com or you@gmail.com, and let you.example expire. Someone else can register it, send email legitimately as you@you.example, and Angular gets compromised. If there is anywhere you forgot to remove your former email from your profile, now you are open to being impersonated.

This problem isn't unique to personal domains, but it's much more likely: the major email services don't make abandoned email addresses open to reregistration, to avoid exactly this issue.

If you're considering registering a domain to use as your online identity, make sure you're willing to take on the cost and hassle of keeping the domain registered indefinitely.


[1] I do cross-post to Facebook, LessWrong, and occasionally other places. I also rely on them to host discussions on my posts, though I attempt to archive those discussions back on my site.

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Food Fridays: Blueberry Cobbler

Here is my blueberry cobber recipe, by request of William Friedman.

via Thing of Things January 16, 2026

Why I Don't Think My Braces Were Worth It

A couple weeks ago, I got my braces off. I kind of wish I had never had them, though. When I was younger, two of my teeth were sticking out, and they looked kind of funny. I thought that my teeth were just fine, and I didn't want to get braces. But s…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts January 3, 2026

Family Christmas

Unlike many families my family celebrates Christmas with really really a lot of our family. This past year there were about 29 people at my Grandfather's house in the week around Christmas. I know what you're thinking: how does that work? It's…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts January 3, 2026

more     (via openring)