> Everyone deserves an e-mail address that cannot be taken away from them without a court order.

Not even a court order, arguably. Internet access and it's essential services like email, is arguably a human right in developed countries. Almost impossible to find employment without it.

I don't think email is the issue here but it is DNS. Email relies on DNS and unfortunately government and ISPs have too much control to take your domain or have it blocked.

Democratic governments having that power seems reasonable: they have to follow a legal process and seizing a domain is rare — if I was worried about government overreach I’d want, say, physical detention to be as fair a process as seizing a domain or bank account is.

ISPs can’t take your domain and blocking is quite rare - usually just active malware attacks - but that seems like an argument for regulating them as utilities because they’re a natural chokepoint and as such many people do not have the option of switching.

The same goes for a normal address. Need one for employment and is arguably a human right.

And yet, it can be taken from you with a court order.

Would it suffice (tech aside for a moment!) if you could migrate your email adress with you from one provider to the next?

Like for phone numbers (at least here you can migrate the whole number, even with ndc)

The state could give out an emailadress like a social security number and you just use that as an alias and can choose whatever provider you want.

And for these emailadresses the providers would be obliged to take you. (Like for mandatory insurances. We have them where I live)

You already can do that. Just buy a domain name, like mySSN.us. You are free to point it at any email provider of your choosing.

I do that, but you're still at the whim of a corpo and have no real legal right to that domain/email adresses.

Also it's kind of technical. Perfect for a nerd like me, but e.g. for my mum? Nope!

Once you buy it you have a legal right to it.

It is a bit technical, but that can be solved without involving the government. You just need the registrar and email providers to talk to each other with OAuth plus some DNS delegation protocol.

Regional domain providers, i.e. .cc country code domains, usually give you legal rights to that domain as long as you pay the fees.

Interesting. So if you want to have some kind of legal protection over your domain, the best bet is buying a .cc domain (from the country you currently live in, I suppose) but no chance when buying a .com, .org domain, right?

Yes, and .is (Iceland) is pretty good. See https://slc.is/#The%20Best%20TLD%20is%20Not%20.com which somewhat summarizes https://www.eff.org/files/2017/08/02/domain_registry_whitepa...

also, (or: alternatively?) one that can't be/won't be blocked by the centralized services' spam filters. The biggest hurdle to running your own email server nowadays isn't the online time or the data volume or anything; it's that the existing institutions don't recognize you as part of the institutional club and block your messages...

btw, Germany did this a decade ago: giving everyone an email account with the national mail service, as an "official email." I honestly don't know anyone here who uses it.

Speaking of Germany, do you mean De-Mail? Because while it is similar to email, it is not email compatible and had a lot of shortcomings.

Yeah, that's the issue : how do you deal with bad actors like gmail or hotmail that by their sheer size seem to have lost all accountability ?

> it's that the existing institutions don't recognize you as part of the institutional club and block your messages...

How common is this if you’ve setup DKIM, SPF, etc.? I’ve only heard about problems in that context where someone hadn’t done the basics or was trying to send from shared IPs and hit some spammer’s past reputation.

Given an account with the legal privilege to spam, how would you prevent it filling up everyone else's inboxes?

Presumably it would be tied to an individual's identity which would make it easy to identify who was sending the email and fine them using existing anti-spam laws.

This was the idea behind the USPS originally, if you read records about it's founding. It wasn't intended to be about physical mail, but about "transmission of information" or something like that. It's actually kind of striking.

People already have accounts in national databases and there's a notification system using e-mail, sms and phone. Why not just manage the e-mail for them (and if they want - they can forward it to their private e-mail of choice).

Instead of being controlled by the government, maybe we should make it easier to setup a mail server for your domain?

Domains are still controlled by the government.

That's true, but the government is still further away from control; besides, web3 is bringing decentralized DNS (see Handshake Protocol) to fix that.

Until they make it easy to bridge decentralized DNS queries with regular DNS even on mobile phones (without using a middleman) but apps that run and do this for users, then no web3 is not bringing decentralized email. Also, email providers would need to bridge decentralized DNS and it is in their interests not to. So Gmail, Outlook, etc which most companies have migrated to will not support it.

Time will tell. I'm optimistic. There's no proof it can't happen.

Define internet services, or do you mean email service?

There are many decisions that impact the usability and cost of the service. Some people need high volume sending or large mailbox storage. Do you punish people for sending spam? Do you filter spam, if so, how. Do people need public terminals to access the service? Etc.

I'm not saying it should be free. Quite the opposite. It should charge the user per-e-mail on an at-cost basis. It's a utility, not a hand-out. Think post office.

Do you punish people for sending spam?

Only by making them pay for every mail they send.

Do you filter spam, if so, how.

On the receiving end. A plugin system would let people choose to subscribe to updated blocklists and filtering rules, just like modern adblocking.

Do people need public terminals to access the service?

Same way it is now. The vast majority of people have their own smart devices, and for the ones who don't there's the public library.

> Quite the opposite. It should charge the user per-e-mail on an at-cost basis.

When you write “charge” do you mean money? When you say “at cost” do you mean at the cost of the sender, receiver, both?

If charge means money, isn’t money just a transaction cost inefficient method of proving stake? Maybe a new SMTP would ask the sending server to perform some work on behalf of the reciever in order for the recover to accept it.

In this case, you'd want the sending client to do some POW. Verified either by the sending server (to prevent it being blacklisted) or by the recipient (as a much wider anti-spam system).

I still would expect this breaks down from ASICS and generally the price not being high enough.

It also seems like it’d have unintended consequences due to resource differentials: a non-profit or freelancer with a newsletter would feel that harder than spammers using other people’s computers or simply getting commissions on the more profitable scams, similar to how cryptocurrency made ransomeware profitable enough that the attackers have more capacity than the defense at most small to medium-sized businesses.

Maybe this would work better in combination with PKI: allow me to give you a signed voucher OR you pay full price, allowing that price to be set high enough to actually deter spam. That wouldn’t help with businesses abusing your contact info for marketing, of course, but there’s never going to be one fix for this class of problems.

It might be cheaper to make the POW fuzzy and cross verified by the POW of other Senders instead of verified by the recipient.

I think if people had to pay per email, email wouldn't have become as big as it is. Especially since in your scenario compromised credentials could incur financial losses. Turning it into a paid utility would cripple it.

For many people, email is synonymous with free digital communication. Ideally such an essential service should not discriminate against homeless people or people with disabilities.

Turning it into a paid utility would cripple it. I don't think I've made it clear enough that this is a proposed addition to the current ecosystem.

Especially since in your scenario compromised credentials could incur financial losses

Why would you be liable for that? An equivalent of the FDIC would work fine.

Then we should first make sure that a computer and Internet access are luxuries rather than necessities.

Since we're regressing, maybe make water and electricity luxuries too.

In the sense that you shouldn't be required to know how to use them to be a full-fledged citizen. (Last I checked, a whopping 20% of citizens had trouble using them.) This involves stopping considering "digitalization" as a cost-cutting measure - and it never was to start with anyway, if one of the goals was to maintain the same quality of service - real human beings are just so much better at it.

while I agree with the idea of emails that can't be arbitrarily shutdown, [email protected] sounds like all kinds of awful. It will either be instantly unusable or require a gov approved SPAM filter, both of which are bad. It also seems like a good vector to force a backdoor on all comms.

I think the issue (as in the what) is that people should always be able to have a fallback option for sending and receiving email that's not at the whim of Google, MS et al.

[email protected] is a how, which may or may not be a good one. For one, here in France, the SSN isn't as important as it seems to be in the US, so its being public is probably less of an issue. This approach would still be bad for spam or whatever.

Another how could be by using the same kind of naming in use elsewhere, as in [email protected]. Except that not anyone would be able to randomly open an account. You'd have to go through some kind of agency that would check your ID. This would allow them to expose a way of changing (in case its overrun by spam) or unlocking (in case of lost password) your account safely.

We have a more or less similar thing in France with bank accounts: you have an "opposable right" (as in, undeniable) to have a basic bank account. Not sure if this is a French law or an EU directive, but I think the same could work for email.

The same right about basic bank account is active in Germany. I have a few poor friends and it is amazing how important this right is. We need the same with internet-access and communication in general.

edit to add I agree. the comment below is just how I think it would actually turn out.

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Avoiding the SSN issue, I think this still comes down to either forcing 3rd parties to host email accounts or gov hosting said email accounts. The former leads to "free" but not free email (like TurboTax) with the former or an outright loss in privacy with the latter.

I get the privacy implications, but I'd say it may not be that big of an issue in practice, if we consider that these accounts would mainly (only?) serve to contact the government.

There's of course the price issue, but that's the case in both situations (3rd party and gov hosting). Of course, at least in France, the government isn't known for always making the best choices cost-wise...

Having a government approved spam filter would be better than letting an oligopoly of five companies decide what constitutes spam.

In fact, I can't think of a single market dominated by a handful of large companies hasnt been improved by the introduction of a government competitor.

There's a reason telcos lobby hard against community broadband and that financial institutions dial back the usuriousness of their fees when the post office offers bare bones accounts.

This would also require everyone to have an email client to handle their email address though. I believe this the reason most folks have a gmail/outlook account because it's easy to set up and operate, not just because it gives them a unique-ish address?

Almost every computer and phone ships with an email client installed.

Sounds horrible. Mobile phones are bad enough, I don't want any more 'guaranteed' ways to be contacted by work or other annoyances in my free time.

That's where right to disconnect and anti-spam measures come in. I'm in France, and i have the right to refuse my employer contacting me outside of work hours, and they pay me if i don't. And since robocall spam is illegal, i get ~1 call every 4-5 months at most, to sell me a different internet or electricity or mobile plan, and they're obligated to respect my refusal to be contacted thereafter ( and all do).

> And since robocall spam is illegal, i get ~1 call every 4-5 months at most, to sell me a different internet or electricity or mobile plan, and they're obligated to respect my refusal to be contacted thereafter ( and all do).

You are just lucky with your number. We get an average of 10 calls a day. Yes, in France. Stuff like Bloctel do not work, it isn't respected. I don't even know if fake caller numbers are now finally disallowed, it doesn't look so; anyway they were allowed for a long time.

Each time the government grants subsidies for whatever, it is immediately diverted by an enormous amount of companies which deal with the grey areas of the laws (laws concerning that subsidies and laws concerning solicitations), and if you have a residential number, you get spammed with commercial robot calls all the time (and then there are the 'empty' robot calls, too).

Is there somehow a lack of affordable - and in many cases free - email options that we need a government solution to this?

I think the issue is that since email is more and more required to interact with the Government services, they should also provide a usable alternative. Why have your citizens rely on random foreign services from which they may be cut off because a bot somewhere is having a bad day?

In France at least, many people (mostly the elderly) are having a hard time using computers and such. Some Government agencies have dedicated personnel to help them with filling in the forms and such on dedicated computers. It could probably be easier for them if they also provided email instead of relying on a third party provider. Grandma lost her password? No biggie. If she has her ID, we can reset it for her. Good luck getting any kind of support from Google / Yahoo in such a case.

Of course, I will explicitly say that I would be very much against such a service being compulsory for the people. I just think it should exist.

The post office ( La Poste) offer free emails, so there already is a non-foreign not-exactly-for-profit free email service out there. Plus all the ISPs also offer emails ( by default, you get an email with your plan, and on some ISPs you can't refuse it), but honestly that's just a terrible idea.

Of course, ISP email is a horrible idea, and I think the government should actively discourage people from using those for their services.

Price isn't the issue, the issue is that marginalised people can be denied service outright. E.g. if you don't have a phone you can't sign up for many of those services. If you have an unusual name you may be rejected. And if you have unpopular political views you may be kicked off.

Cost aside, a solution needs to be highly available. Third party services can not guarantee your email will be available for the duration of your lifespan.

There is also the issue of data stewardship, (democratic) governments can ensure independent reviews and be held accountable for security breaches and data misuse. They could also be held liable for losses incurred by service defects.

arbitrary account shutdown is a known issue with free email. losing your gmail account without explanation and with no recourse can be an awful situation for anyone, especially for vulnerable populations. This leaves the options of forcing private orgs to maintain email addresses or have a gov email for every citizen, both of which have significant drawbacks.

Great idea on the paper but public goods management is often worse than what you find everywhere else.

> Everyone deserves an e-mail address that cannot be taken away from them without a court order.

Why?

Things you have to use email for:

* applying for jobs

* getting covid tests/vaccines

* buying virtually anything online

* interacting with the government online (I needed to provide an email address to update my driver's license and vehicle registration)

* opening a bank account

* renting an apartment

These are important things, so we might as well have some guaranteed way to access these services. Especially because you need an email to interact with a lot of government services.

I know that you do not need an email for some of the things you mentioned. I doubt you need an email for the rest.

I don't think the change we need to make here is "everyone should require email for everything, and therefore we need government subsidized emails for everyone." If anything, the change should be "email is not required", because it's not.

Furthermore, these are not rights but privileges:

> buying virtually anything online > interacting with the government online (I needed to provide an email address to update my driver's license and vehicle registration) > opening a bank account > renting an apartment

I feel strongly the other things aren't rights either, but don't want to argue about it.

Would you like to tell me more about this society where having a roof over your head is not a right, but a privilege? More of a privilege than applying for a job?

We're talking about paying rent online being a right or a privilege. It's not a natural right that should be protected or provided by the government.

You are welcome to try to make a point again without twisting my words if you'd like, if you can.

But we also all need to eat and use a toilet to live. Those seem to be provided by the market to a reasonable degree. Email is also pretty cheap and there's at least some choice among providers, though of course far fewer that food types.

I don't think this is a fair comparison. You can replace a toilet, arguably upgrade to a better one with little to no disadvantage.

Taking away an email address someone has had and is their primary point of contact for years, possibly decades is irreplaceable. Being able to create a new one isn't equal to the old one.

Not sure about elsewhere in the world, but even regular mail isn't that painful in my country. Pay a nominal fee to Australia post and you can have all mail addressed to you forwarded from your old to new address for N months (or years).

This is a good point. Maybe there should be a free forwarding rule.

I noticed that Yahoo now charges to forward email from my old address, which I think is unreasonable.

The reason there are as many food types is that you pay for food, while most people (except corporations) don't pay for email. This makes it so investments in food production can be returned without waiting for network effect / vendor lock-in to reach a significant level.

Your toilet example actually proves the point. Generally, water and wastewater services are not private (I know there's exceptions and most are going terribly wrong). So yes everyone's ability to use a toilet is somewhat government guaranteed.

Not exceptions (in the US at least). 1/4 water are private and 1/2 sewer is private: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_the_Uni...

Yeah but the existence of toilets is mandated by code. The existence of email isn't regulated in any way. Requiring non-commercial (<-- which is doing a lot of work here) email addresses would cause a robust market to appear overnight.

Wait, what do you mean by "non-commercial" ?

Government related

Ah, but not provided by the government itself ??

Correct. Just like a toilet.

Hopefully this citizens email also comes with severe rules for commercial mail or else it'll soon be flooded with junk.

Just like how the highly regulated phone system dealt with voice and SMS spam.

Email is already flooded. We don’t need your metaphor.

In this day and age of censorship, I feel the same about web hosting. The American government should provide their citizens with a small space of hosting to share their thoughts.

> The American government should provide their citizens with a small space of hosting to share their thoughts.

... why? What are you basing this on legally/morally other than your own want?

You could ask yourself the same question about all the public infrastructure that exists. I mean why even have roads, legally or morally??

Roads serve the public interest and have been legislated into existence at the federal level[1]. Your turn.

[1] - https://history.house.gov/Records-and-Research/Listing/lfp_0...

Were roads legislated before they existed?

Did they serve the public interest (as in, did everybody benefit from them) when they were starting to get built?

That's precisely what will happen with what I proposed.

I imagine getting your representatives to author and pass legislation for this (which will include raising money to pay for it) will be met with more opposition than you think. I think this because I don't think it serves the public interest :)

I do hope that web 3 brings a DNS service that can be bought once and owned forever that nobody can tear even from your cold dead hands. I'm not holding my breath though.

I tried to design one, using a blockchain. [1]

It had all sorts of nice properties, including some resilience against Sybil attacks.

The problem was that, even with the ability to "forget" unneeded blocks, the storage requirement was simply out of reach for the regular person. [2]

And because it's out of reach of the regular person, it will inevitably centralize around companies that do it for people. And we're back to where we started.

So that's why I gave up on the idea.

[1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-...

[2]: https://gavinhoward.com/2021/03/setting-aside-an-idea-decent...

If there is a problem that web3 and blockchain can’t solve I’ve yet to hear about it.

On the contrary, I'd say I haven't yet heard of a problem that web3 and blockchain can solve better than other technologies.

There are a lot of problems for which you can create solutions that involve web3 and blockchain but that doesn't mean that technology is necessary nor sufficient to solve those problems, nor that it is the best solution (or a good solution, at least).

Web3 and blockchain do solve a number of problems in the specific scenario that you want to collaborate within domains controlled by the blockchain with individuals you actively distrust, though. With the obvious caveats that you have to trust the blockchain itself (which both in PoS and PoW means trusting people with sufficient wealth to control large portions of the infrastructure) and that everything you want to do has to be within domains controlled by the blockchain (whether the actual problems within that domain benefit from this or not).

So in a sense the question becomes how much you are willing to sacrifice to be able to solve that class of problems instead of redefining the problem so it doesn't require a blockchain.

I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic.

unstoppabledomains.com?