Your street address doesn't change unless you move, but your e-mail address is another story. It can change at an Internet Service Provider's whim or even disappear entirely. Once popular local Internet addresses like clark.net, digex.com, and home.com closed their e-post office doors long ago. Is there any way you can get a permanent e-mail address and avoid losing messages or even contact with friends, family, and co-workers? Well, yes, but there are no perfect fixes.
There was a time when companies advertising permanent e-mail addresses were commonplace, but many companies that once offered such services, like ValiseMail and Permanent E-Mail Address Company, have gone out of business. As David Ferris, chief analyst of e-mail and groupware research house Ferris Research, says, "There is absolutely a real need for permanent e-mail addresses, but while there are places that will create vanity press addresses, many of these will go under."
You can also get an e-mail address from some of the better known, and hopefully longer lasting, Internet companies like Yahoo and (soon) Google. But, even these companies change their rules and some, like AltaVista, have ended up dropping e-mail services entirely.
Even telephone companies can change their users' addresses, as former Bell Atlantic, now Verizon, customers well know.
One approach for college graduates is to check to see if your school or its alumni association offers an e-mail address. After all, georgetown.edu isn't likely to disappear anytime soon. Not all schools offer these services, though. For example, the University of Maryland doesn't offer this service.
If your old school doesn't work for you, perhaps a group you belong to offers an e-mail address. Professional associations like the IEEE sometimes offer e-mail for their current members.
Still, probably the most popular way to get an address that will last forever, or close enough for government work, is to get a domain of your own.
Simply getting a domain name, a.k.a. parking, doesn't mean you get a web or e-mail server. All it means, in real estate terms, is that you've bought a lot to build on. Web servers, e-mail, and all the rest are the house.
There are two steps to getting a domain to call your very own. The first is to go to a domain registry to claim your domain name. These are companies like Verisign, Domain Direct, and Dotster that track domain names and give you the tools you need to grab your own domain name.
