Q: Why my own domain, why not gmail, yahoo or outlook?

A: A solid domain, server and IP (Internet Protocol) reputation is the foundation of a successful business that intends to do any form of business online, including email.

Google owns the domain gmail.com, Yahoo owns the domain yahoo.com and Microsoft owns outlook.com and so on, and amongst many other free-service domains, are used by millions of people for many reasons; good, bad and ugly. Do you want your name and business associated with the bad and ugly? No.

If the intention is for you to own your intellectual property, then it is imperative that you own the digital foundation of that property. If you own a house but someone else owns the foundation on which that house was built, then do you really own the house on which it sits? Well, it’s just needlessly complicated and best to rather own everything that you and your business like to call your own leaving as little room as possible for any disagreement.

Also, if you represent your business as something like This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for example, then someone can just register This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for example and get your clients to pay to the ‘new bank account’ or whatever other fraud and spoofing they may wish to conduct. Most users don’t even have multi-factor authentication security on, and use the same password for everything so it just opens up massive opportunities to be defrauded one way or another because you have no control over those domains, ownership or usage.

A sad example of this was when iBurst sold the company and the new owners decided they didn’t want to support their free @iburst.co.za or @wbs.co.za email addresses and those people and businesses that were using them had no opportunity to move before their email accounts were simply turned off and any mails stored on them, deleted.