An interesting petition!

Agx · 24 Jun 2014, 06:43 AM

Hi to all,

I hope that I don't violate any rules of the forum, but I want to suggest to vote for this interesting petition about Outlook.com!

https://www.change.org/petitions/mic...email-username

Tsunami · 26 Jul 2014, 07:41 AM

Change.org ? Wasn't that domain owned by the US government? I remember when Obama got elected they used a website with the name "Change" for a while. Would be odd if they'd let it expire with the risk of falling into the wrong hands afterwards ...

Anyways, as far as the petition goes: to my knowledge Gmail is the only one not recycling usernames of terminated accounts. So why is the petition tackling Outlook specifically and not all the many others too who recycle user names?

xmailer · 26 Jul 2014, 08:17 AM

Offhand I don't know who owns the change.org domain, but I was never under the impression that it was the US government or any other government. But to the best of my understanding and recollection, just about anyone can start a petition under that domain in favor of or against almost anything. That might explain why this one targets Outlook specifically. You would probably also be free to open a petition to Gmail if you wanted, although with no guarantees that it will get anywhere.

Tsunami · 26 Jul 2014, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xmailer

Offhand I don't know who owns the change.org domain, but I was never under the impression that it was the US government or any other government. But to the best of my understanding and recollection, just about anyone can start a petition under that domain in favor of or against almost anything. That might explain why this one targets Outlook specifically. You would probably also be free to open a petition to Gmail if you wanted, although with no guarantees that it will get anywhere.

There's a lot of free petition services. I only used petitiononline.com but was very pleased with it. Easy to use, and easy to export the petition at any time to your local computer. Which comes in handy to print, or to use as email attachment when contacting the service you petition against.

No petition, online or offline, can ever guarantee it will get anywhere, otherwise a lot of the world's problems would have been long solved since almost against every war or human rights violation we have petitions going. Sadly enough, a petition can only make as much impression to the receiver as he allows it to make. The success rate of these sites thus is very dependent on subject of petition, destination of the petition, and whether the receiving party takes it seriously. I'm not sure if the actual site hosting the petition makes any difference.

Maybe it does... Because some online petition providers allow you to use a false name and without email address verification, so one person could sign the petition multiple times. A decent provider of online petitions should exclude that, since it makes the entire petition less credible.

PS: to my knowledge after the first Obama election there was a site called "Change" since it was a core word in the campaign. I'd just find it weird that they'd just let the domain expire, knowing anyone would be able to grab it and use it for maybe not very bona fide reasons. Not sure if that was change.org though, the TLD may have been different.

PSS: Gmail, again as far as I know, is one of the few you would NOT have to petition against if you want to put an end to username recycling. Gmail is one of the few who doesn't recycle the usernames of terminated, expired or long inactive accounts.

n5bb · 26 Jul 2014, 11:54 AM

With regards to the purpose of the petition - I understand the problem and potential for abuse, but a few simple steps will nearly always keep the email provider (who owns their domains) from giving away your address:

Pick an email provider and account type which is likely to be maintained for many years. In some cases, it's safer to get a paid account, since free accounts may be dropped unless advertising provides enough revenue to support the account operating costs.
Log into the account periodically (such as once a month). This probably means that you shouldn't get accounts at so many different services that you don't have a need for continuing use of the email account.
Keep good records for the email addresses and login credentials you use (in a password safe or similar tool). There should be backups of this list so there isn't a single point of failure.

Some people seem to feel that they own their email address (and the services required to direct email sent to that address to them and not someone else). Unless you own the domain, you are really just renting the email account and address for as long as you pay for that account. If the owner of the email domain changes, the new owner can do anything they wish with email sent to that domain. And, of course, the email provider can choose to change their rules at any time for how they allow your use of that address.

The only way to keep a secure email address without limitations is to own your own domain, keep it in good standing (which requires periodic domain registration fees), and keep control of the DNS records for that domain.

I find this similar to a telephone number, post office box, or street mailing address. If you don't maintain your ownership (or rental) of that number or address, the number or address will deliver to the new owner or renter of that identifier. A vehicle license plate similarly may be reassigned by the issuing authority.

Many people are very unhappy about the current Google policy of blocking all future access to abandoned Gmail email addresses (and variations on those addresses). If someone gets Gmail addresses at your name and all reasonable variations on that name, then even if they never use those accounts those addresses are unavailable to you and everyone else for as long as Gmail maintains their current policy and their list of unavailable usernames. You can't get your own account back after a while, because Gmail destroys other records and only keeps the unavailable usernames in their database, blocking them from everyone "forever" (whatever that means!). Gmail allows usernames as short as 6 characters, so there are (26)^6 = 308,915,776 such combinations. After these are all assigned, then for all time (theoretically) no new 6 character usernames would be allowed.

You might want to protect your name even more than an email address. Should there be a worldwide database of names, and newly born persons would then not be allowed to have the name of anyone who has ever lived?

Bill

24 Jun 2014, 06:43 AM	#1
Agx Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 164	An interesting petition! Hi to all, I hope that I don't violate any rules of the forum, but I want to suggest to vote for this interesting petition about Outlook.com! https://www.change.org/petitions/mic...email-username

26 Jul 2014, 11:54 AM	#5
n5bb Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Irving, Texas Posts: 8,928	With regards to the purpose of the petition - I understand the problem and potential for abuse, but a few simple steps will nearly always keep the email provider (who owns their domains) from giving away your address: Pick an email provider and account type which is likely to be maintained for many years. In some cases, it's safer to get a paid account, since free accounts may be dropped unless advertising provides enough revenue to support the account operating costs. Log into the account periodically (such as once a month). This probably means that you shouldn't get accounts at so many different services that you don't have a need for continuing use of the email account. Keep good records for the email addresses and login credentials you use (in a password safe or similar tool). There should be backups of this list so there isn't a single point of failure. Some people seem to feel that they own their email address (and the services required to direct email sent to that address to them and not someone else). Unless you own the domain, you are really just renting the email account and address for as long as you pay for that account. If the owner of the email domain changes, the new owner can do anything they wish with email sent to that domain. And, of course, the email provider can choose to change their rules at any time for how they allow your use of that address. The only way to keep a secure email address without limitations is to own your own domain, keep it in good standing (which requires periodic domain registration fees), and keep control of the DNS records for that domain. I find this similar to a telephone number, post office box, or street mailing address. If you don't maintain your ownership (or rental) of that number or address, the number or address will deliver to the new owner or renter of that identifier. A vehicle license plate similarly may be reassigned by the issuing authority. Many people are very unhappy about the current Google policy of blocking all future access to abandoned Gmail email addresses (and variations on those addresses). If someone gets Gmail addresses at your name and all reasonable variations on that name, then even if they never use those accounts those addresses are unavailable to you and everyone else for as long as Gmail maintains their current policy and their list of unavailable usernames. You can't get your own account back after a while, because Gmail destroys other records and only keeps the unavailable usernames in their database, blocking them from everyone "forever" (whatever that means!). Gmail allows usernames as short as 6 characters, so there are (26)^6 = 308,915,776 such combinations. After these are all assigned, then for all time (theoretically) no new 6 character usernames would be allowed. You might want to protect your name even more than an email address. Should there be a worldwide database of names, and newly born persons would then not be allowed to have the name of anyone who has ever lived? Bill

26 Jul 2014, 07:41 AM	#2
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Change.org ? Wasn't that domain owned by the US government? I remember when Obama got elected they used a website with the name "Change" for a while. Would be odd if they'd let it expire with the risk of falling into the wrong hands afterwards ... Anyways, as far as the petition goes: to my knowledge Gmail is the only one not recycling usernames of terminated accounts. So why is the petition tackling Outlook specifically and not all the many others too who recycle user names?

26 Jul 2014, 08:17 AM	#3
xmailer Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: USA Posts: 5,485	Offhand I don't know who owns the change.org domain, but I was never under the impression that it was the US government or any other government. But to the best of my understanding and recollection, just about anyone can start a petition under that domain in favor of or against almost anything. That might explain why this one targets Outlook specifically. You would probably also be free to open a petition to Gmail if you wanted, although with no guarantees that it will get anywhere.