Re: Permanent email address?

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

rhkramer@gmail.com wrote: 
> My understanding is that the (only?) way to do get such a permanent address is 
> to have my own domain and assign an email address in that domain to me?

Correct.

Find a domain that is currently unclaimed. Pay $8-15/year to a
domain registrar to establish your ownership. They will usually
throw in simple DNS hosting for free, but you don't need to use
them; if you have a server or two with static IP addresses, you
can even run it yourself.

In DNS, you publish an MX (mail exchange) record that says where
mail for the domain goes. You can point that to a commercial
provider (they will provide instructions) or to your own mail
server.

1. Domain name
2. DNS servicing that domain name 
3. MX record in DNS pointing to mail server


> Also, iiuc, I cannot move my gmail address to some other provider?

Correct. @gmail.com belongs to Google.

I note that nobody owns rhkramer.org:

$ host rhkramer.org
Host rhkramer.org not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

NXDOMAIN means no such domain.

-dsr-