Lifetime mail

An email address has a standard format being name@domainname, the domain needs to be registered either by yourself or a third party. For example domains@hotmail.co.uk is an example of an email address provided by hotmail.

Is there such a thing as lifetime mail?

There are a number of free providers around, for example Google offers Gmail for free and covers its cost by running low level advertising. These services are free currently and whilst there is no indication from Google or others that they plan to charge, that might happen in the future.

Also Google is known to scan your emails contents to allow it to display targeted advertising to accompany your emails, with all the stories around the web about the Government monitor email communication that does give the user food for thought about just how private their email correspondence actually is through these providers.

Policy changes

Companies can and do change their policies from time to time, so whilst sending large attachments might be fine at the current time, that might change unexpectedly.

Your Own Domain Name

Only if you own your domain name can you truly control your own email address for a lifetime. Currently domain names can only be registered for a maximum of 10 years at any one time, so even this has a limit, but you do have the right to renew as soon as its possible to add more years, so for example if there are 9 years and 1 day left, you can't add more years, but you can when there is 9 years exactly or less left on the registration expiry.

Conclusion

Only by having your own domain name can you be sure of having the same email address for life and having consistence of its ability to send email.

Adrian Lawrence is a webmaster with Discount Domains a leading UK ICANN registrar