Keeping the same email address lifelong is a little-noticed recipe to digital happiness, reports the German tech magazine c't in a recent report on one of the internet's bugaboos. The problem: online accounts for everything from Facebook to the electricity company identify their users by user name, password and email address. When users forget the passwords, the email address is the last verifiable means of confirming their identity.
If someone switches email address and forgets to let businesses and services know, they may end up locked out of accounts. Few people can remember all the online portals they use, so the risk is real.
If you do switch email addresses, make sure you update your contact information with all the online shopping sites, social networks and so on that you use before transferring email addresses, notes c't.
Otherwise, you'll have lost your primary method of confirming your identity with the old email address, and will have no way of proving who you are to websites that have not been informed about the new address. Even closing old accounts becomes impossible, says c't.
Lose access to an email account happens often. For example, if one changes job, the email account goes too. That's one reason to refrain from using an office email address for personal purposes, warn the c't experts.
Similar risks lurk with the free email addresses passed out by internet service providers. Change to a different telecoms company, and in most cases those addresses vanish as well.
There are also no guarantees that freemail accounts such as Googlemail will be available for all time, warn experts. Similar freemail services have been known to shut down in the past.
The best way to make sure you have lifelong access to your email is to set up your own web domain. It might cost a little bit each month, but it means all internet addresses in the domain belong to you.
But be aware, if you forget to pay your annual registration fee, someone else might swoop in and grab the domain name.
Even if you do set up your own domain, it's still a good idea to set up multiple email accounts for yourself within it, so you can have different accounts linked to different online services.
Doing so makes it harder for cybercriminals to steal a user's entire identity.
Domains can be registered via web and mail hosters or directly with a domain registrar. Experts say it doesn't really matter which route you take, so long as it is you personally who is registered as the "administrative contact."
It is easiest to set up the domain with a service that doesn't just register your address, but also offers an entire package that includes a functioning mail server. Good services offer the freedom to use an email client programme, apps or webmail services at will.