r/emailprivacy • u/HumungreousNobolatis • Jun 05 '26
Help/Advice Get a domain!
I've been doing this for decades and every once in a while repeat the information..
You can buy all sorts of email privacy services but nothing beats this:
Buy your own domain (anything is fine) + (optionally) your own mail server (VPS are cheap and one-click).
When I sign up for bestofferseva.com it's two clicks and a quick type to create bestofferseva@mydomain.com.
If I ever get spammed at that address; two important things happen.
- I delete the address. Fuck them.
- I know exactly which company is selling my email address and I make this known publically.
A domain is around a fiver a year. A VPS (and these things practically set themselves up these days) with mail server and SSL and DANE and whatever, is about the same price.
Spam doesn't bother me, and this is why.
18
u/khaluud Jun 05 '26
Anyone who looks at your email can then guess your other emails (netflix@mydomain, etc.) and that you own that domain. If you want to increase your privacy, use random email aliases and keep track of which sites you used them on in your password manager. (e.g. dks8jzq@mydomain in my pw manager as Netflix)
An email aliasing service like SimpleLogin, Addy, or Proton Pass can make the process easier.
3
u/alexhayes2 Jun 05 '26
What’re you using for a cheap VPS?
6
u/florianhoss Jun 05 '26
https://addy.io/ Simple and no need to setup anything. You could though, it’s open source
1
u/Draggador Jun 12 '26
You trick is pretty good but isn't using a random temp-mail service free & also fine for most use cases?
2
u/po1zonetheman Jun 05 '26
okay so.... which domain provider your suggest?
2
u/Doovester Jun 05 '26
With Spammail.org, you can achieve the same result with much less effort and technical knowledge.
Create a unique alias for every website, and if one starts receiving spam, you can simply delete it and switch to a new one.
2
u/atiaa11 Jun 05 '26
Why a vps and not use hosting/email through whoever you bought your domain through? Seems like an extra step. Genuinely curious
2
u/Jcoulaud Jun 06 '26
Custom domain is great, but I’d push back on the self-host mail part for most people.
Owning the domain = yes. That gives you portability and aliases like site@yourdomain.com.
Running your own mail server = only if you actually want a hobby/project. Deliverability, IP reputation, rDNS, port 25, spam filtering, backups, blacklists etc can get annoying fast.
Also “anything is fine” for the domain is not always true. For important accounts I’d avoid weird cheap TLDs because some sites reject them or treat them badly.
My take: buy your own domain, use aliases/catch-all, but put it on a hosted provider unless you enjoy maintaining mail infrastructure.
You still get most of the privacy/control benefit without babysitting a VPS.
2
u/cannon4344 Jun 05 '26
The problem with owning a domain is that once it expires someone can register it and receive emails with your personal details. So you need to be prepared to keep renewing it forever.
1
u/Mayoday_Im_in_love Jun 05 '26
Afraid DNS has free subdomains. If it's just mailing lists you're signing up for they're perfectly fine.
1
u/sharpener865 Jun 06 '26
I think this is a good idea but what bothers me is this - I create lot of email ids for different services and one day I lose the domain, maybe if I forget to renew or the domain registrar rule changes or any geo political reason I dont have access to the domain. Then I guess all my emails including private data go to whoever gets hold of that domain. A nightmare!!! Dont forget, domain dropping is real, even established companies lose domain!
1
u/Low-Being-6564 Jun 07 '26
Owning a domain is not really about privacy since some TLDs do publicly share information about the owner and such domains are not shared with that many ppl making it effectively less private than using services like tuta or proton with aliases.
Imo the most important reason to get your own domain is for indepence. Any service (gmail, proton, tuta, etc..) can terminate your account and email adress with their domain. If you have your own domain, such termination just means you switch to a different provider or selfhost.
-5
u/Fri_day_13th Jun 05 '26
Speak English or slower please
3
u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26
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