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I'm considering changing my domain name, which I've had for the past ~5 years, for a couple of reasons:

  1. Prices have gone up nearly 50% of the tld I'm using.
  2. I want to switch to .com

During the years I have used emails from my domain to register at dozens of sites and services, now when these changes take place, all of my accounts are open to potential theft if someone buys my old domain.

Manually changing my email in all the services is not really an option because I can not possibly remember every account I made.

I realize the chances of this happening are quite slim but I don't like chances.

Is there anything I could do?

php_nub_qq
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    BTW this is one reason why I always store the registration email in the password manager together with the account, so I can list all (most) sites using a specific email address. – eckes May 04 '20 at 05:53
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    If you never actually delete old e-Mails and just archive them, you can probably run a few searches to find almost all "account creation confirmed" mails and thus identify most of the services where you should change your mail. – Falco May 04 '20 at 14:08
  • Consider exploring for a domain provider who can provide DNS services for cheaper than your current costs ? If you're buying website hosting services, then that can be done by you separately. – Criggie May 04 '20 at 20:17
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    My guess is that you have at least time until september before your domain expires. So at least still have a good amount of time to think *thorouhgly* what those services might have been. Don't forget long-term stuff such as (other) domain registries, certificate agencies, software licensing. If you cannot think of it by September, do not even use it by then, don't get any mails by then - it seems they are not that important after all and this at least makes it fortunately somewhat *unlikely* that the next domain owner will even *guess* that there is an id to steal. Perhaps a bit of comfort.. – Hagen von Eitzen May 04 '20 at 21:56
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    If you just buy the domain and forward it to your new one, you can use the cheapest provider you can find which will probably be somewhere around €/$ 5~10 per year. – CompuChip May 05 '20 at 11:54
  • @CompuChip how do you find the cheapest provider? Everywhere I checked the price seemed to be roughly the same – php_nub_qq May 05 '20 at 12:03
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    @CompuChip that heavily depends on the TLD. – Andrea Lazzarotto May 05 '20 at 14:59
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    @HagenvonEitzen Why September? – Asteroids With Wings May 05 '20 at 15:41
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    This question was also asked more broadly at [InfoSec.SE](https://security.stackexchange.com/q/9156/56961). Also see questions about [cleanup after domain expiry](https://security.stackexchange.com/q/14953/56961) and [how this happens at major Email Providers, too](https://security.stackexchange.com/q/171660/56961). – Michael May 06 '20 at 16:02

2 Answers2

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Unfortunately no. Once you give up a domain whomever purchases it next has complete control.

If this were not the case, you might be restricted from accepting mail on a new domain you purchase if the previous owner didn't want you to.

Peleion
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    And this is why I'm still clinging on to domain-names I bought when I was 12 years old that are embarrassingly cringeworthy now - but it's a domain-name I used for all my emails right until about 5-6 years ago. – Dai May 06 '20 at 01:13
  • Yes. And you can use a MX record on the old domain to forward emails to your current mail server, – Peleion May 06 '20 at 13:59
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    I do - all of my domain-names I've registered over the past 20 years (whoa...) have MX records pointing to my current email provider. – Dai May 06 '20 at 14:02
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Make sure you understand the difference between "registering" a domain-name, provisioning domain-name service for it, and actually running a mailserver or hosting content in it.

It may be that you're paying for a package that includes domain-name registration, nameserving, webhosting, and mail, and you could save money by dealing with a different registrar for the registration, using a service like DynDNS or Amazon Route 53 for nameserving, and running a forwarding-only email service on the old domain. Whatever hosting provided you use for the .com domain can probably accept e-mail for additional domains, or you could using something like Amazon SES, currently free for the first 1000 incoming e-mail messages per month.

And the registrar may offer you a chance to lock the current rate in for 5 years, not just another year. That should give you time for a long-term plan as well.

But some of the newer gTLDs are more expensive to register or reregister a domain in. According to Compare Prices of All Top-Level Domains, the most-expensive TLD is currently .hoteles, about $65000 to register and about $71500 to renew. If you have an important personal or business e-mail address in a vanity TLD like that, you're tied down to it. However, if you have a really valuable domain (in that TLD, or anywhere), you might monetize it by selling it, but make sure the contract specifies that the new owner (and any subsequent assignees) will forward and not store e-mail sent to certain addresses, during some specified period.

david
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    This. You shouldn't be paying more than £10-£20/yr for a [sensible] domain. If that's too expensive, you probably have larger concerns. Otherwise, just keep it. – Asteroids With Wings May 05 '20 at 15:37
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    @AsteroidsWithWings It turned out to be an issue with the company that's managing my domain. It's an .info domain which pretty much everywhere I checked is priced at ~$12 per year. My guys sell it at $22 which is like 100 bucks difference when paid for 10 years. I'm going to have a call with them tomorrow and if they refuse to give me a "discount" I'll just transfer it as much as I wouldn't like to.. – php_nub_qq May 05 '20 at 16:22
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    @php_nub_qq Good luck though, to be fair, that's pretty cheap, and you have spent more time here than it's worth for it ;) – Asteroids With Wings May 06 '20 at 20:48