Don't go anywhere near iname or mail.com
Many years ago, at the dawn of the internet era, a company called iname had the rather good idea of registering a whole bunch of domain names (you didn't need to pay for them back then, it was first come first served) and then getting people to use email addresses which were prettier than the sort of 100235.9972@compuserve.com which one usually got back then. They wouldn't store your email for you, they would just forward it on to an address which you gave them.
It was a good idea, and I took them up on their introductory offer of one email address free for life. No matter which ISP or employer I was using at the time, I would always have the same email address: felix@journalism.com. Easily memorable: perfect.
Not much later, Hotmail came along and stole a lot of iname's thunder with their web-based system. I think at this point iname started getting a bit sloppy, and its servers would sometimes suffer nasty latency: emails wouldn't arrive until hours after they were sent. Eventually they wound up merging with mail.com, but even that didn't seem to solve the reliability issues.
To make matters worse, the merged company decided that it wasn't bound by iname's promises, and announced that it was stopping all access to its outgoing mail servers unless I paid them a monthly fee. I didn't want to pay, of course, so that had a nasty effect: while email addressed to felix@journalism.com would continue to come to me, any replies would have to come from whatever address I was using at the time: salmon@ideaus.com, or fsalmon@bridge.com. No longer could people see "felix@journalism.com" on the From line of their emails, and any replies they sent would bypass the whole iname service entirely. I sent iname an email asking them about this, and they sent me an automated reply which didn't answer any of my questions.
By this point, however, the fact that most of my email was going nowhere near iname was quite a good thing.The latency issues were not going away, and a short-lived attempt to use felix@journalism.com as my main email address failed within a few days of my leaving Bridge. The emails were just not getting through, and I reverted to the email account I have with my ISP: fsalmon@nyc.rr.com.
All the same, a lot of people would still write to me at felix@journalism.com, mainly because it's so easy to remember, and eventually, their emails would get through. Well, they won't any more. Iname sent me another email today, saying that they're now going to start charging for the forwarding service. All their promises of a lifelong email address have gone out the window.
So don't use iname, don't use mail.com, and if you want to get in touch with me, don't use felix@journalism.com. Use felix@felixsalmon.com instead: I own the domain name, so I know I won't get shafted this time.
(Oh, and are you interested in what iname has to say about all this?
Here you go: "Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Customer
feedback is our most valuable resource for making improvements to
our service. We will consider your feedback as we make decisions on
improving our service and bringing you new features.
You will not receive another reply to your message.Thank you again
for writing.Sincerely, The Mail.com Team.")
Posted by Felix at 0:48 EST
Comments
Super. Good.
keep it up.
Posted by: willie Mponda at 5:26 EST, May 22, 2003
Iname stopped free forwarding services probably due to cost constraints, but you can still receive email to iname and send from the iname email if you log into the iname site. I have been using iname for about a decade with superior service to other email services that simply disappeared.
Posted by: Mark Cantrell at 21:39 EST, March 03, 2004
I've had the same issues - three times now I've had to be the thorn intheir side in order to get them to back-up their initial claims.
Any lawyers out there? How about a class action on this?
Posted by: Robert Keel at 19:46 EST, September 26, 2004
Mail.com has been down for 2 days now.. I know this is an old post but I guess they haven't learned. I hope everything is in tact at least when / if they come back online. Once they do, I'm taking all my contacts and switching - this is the last time I go without email.
Posted by: Very Annoyed at 13:21 EST, January 19, 2006
Jan 22 and Mail.com is still down.
Maybe they are going away. Maybe that's for the best. I know I will take everything off that I had if it ever comes back up. And I'll never go back.
Posted by: Bart at 23:33 EST, January 22, 2006
Who is Jenny Powel, and what does she drink in the tub?
Itwitis
Posted by: Jenny Powel at 13:32 EST, May 31, 2006
My mail.com forwarding (iname) has been down for over a day. Anyone experiencing the same problem and know if it will be fixed?
Posted by: David Fischer at 13:10 EST, June 24, 2006
I experienced the same B.S. with iname, and would certainly not recommend them. Between the probelms described above, the interruption of pop-up ads in between answering emails has on a number of occasions resulted in the loss of replies I was about to send. Iname = Inuisance; don't use their non-service.
Posted by: Mike W. at 15:10 EST, August 25, 2006
I experienced the same B.S. with iname, and would certainly not recommend them. Between the probelms described above, the interruption of pop-up ads in between answering emails has on a number of occasions resulted in the loss of replies I was about to send. Iname = Inuisance; don't use their non-service.
Posted by: Mike W. at 15:11 EST, August 25, 2006
I'm trying to transfer a domain and just realized that the email associated with the domain is an iname email. Guess I took their lifelong promise a little seriously. Anyway, now I have to fax my old registrar an email change request, a copy of my Driver's license and a utility bill on which the address matches the ID. I hate iname and mail.com
Posted by: rex at 16:11 EST, July 03, 2007
Hi! What is this?!
Posted by: goldfpond at 10:58 EST, July 12, 2007
I actually got on board with this as well when they were offering free mail forwarding for 'life'. Well apparently my 'life' was only a few months because I got the same correspondence as you did offer me the 'option' of now paying for my free forwarding for life at something like $9.99/yr. The lease they could have done was offer a one time payment to keep the promises iname made, i very well may have paid a one time $50 to keep that email, but no way was i going to be paying them for the rest of my 'life'.
Interesting point however, the email i registered with them is still 'active' in-so-far as it's still pointing to a now defunct email server which i have no access to but no one else can purchase that email address as i do still 'own' it for what it's worth now which is nothing!
I did try contacting them with my opinion of their business practices using a few choice words that made it clear in no uncertain terms that what they had done to so many people was not just reprehensible but blatantly bordered on blackmail!
I feel your pain, and defiantly concur that staying away from this company and anything they touch is a good idea!
Posted by: Toby at 15:46 EST, April 11, 2008
I actually got on board with this as well when they were offering free mail forwarding for 'life'. Well apparently my 'life' was only a few months because I got the same correspondence as you did offer me the 'option' of now paying for my free forwarding for life at something like $9.99/yr. The lease they could have done was offer a one time payment to keep the promises iname made, i very well may have paid a one time $50 to keep that email, but no way was i going to be paying them for the rest of my 'life'.
Interesting point however, the email i registered with them is still 'active' in-so-far as it's still pointing to a now defunct email server which i have no access to but no one else can purchase that email address as i do still 'own' it for what it's worth now which is nothing!
I did try contacting them with my opinion of their business practices using a few choice words that made it clear in no uncertain terms that what they had done to so many people was not just reprehensible but blatantly bordered on blackmail!
I feel your pain, and defiantly concur that staying away from this company and anything they touch is a good idea!
Posted by: Toby at 15:47 EST, April 11, 2008
I actually got on board with this as well when they were offering free mail forwarding for 'life'. Well apparently my 'life' was only a few months because I got the same correspondence as you did offer me the 'option' of now paying for my free forwarding for life at something like $9.99/yr. The least they could have done was offer a one time payment to keep the promises iname made, i very well may have paid a one time $50 to keep that email, but no way was i going to be paying them for the rest of my 'life'.
Interesting point however, the email i registered with them is still 'active' in-so-far as it's still pointing to a now defunct email server which i have no access to but no one else can purchase that email address as i do still 'own' it for what it's worth now which is nothing!
I did try contacting them with my opinion of their business practices using a few choice words that made it clear in no uncertain terms that what they had done to so many people was not just reprehensible but blatantly bordered on blackmail!
I feel your pain, and defiantly concur that staying away from this company and anything they touch is a good idea!
Posted by: Toby at 15:49 EST, April 11, 2008
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