Ireland.com pulled the plug after 15 years - 3 weeks notice!

Dravokivich

the_syco wrote: »

Would be fun if all 15,000 people filed FoI letters to get all their emails... in paper format.

FOI Wouldn't be valid. I find it hilarious when people try to use it as a trump card, without actually knowing what it refers to.

Sorentox wrote: »

http://www.dataprotection.ie

email info@dataprotection.ie


If your annoyed by the way you are treated – write to them today. It’s your data, your data history, your electronic address and identification. We are not all IT engineers – this is a cumbersome task to complete properly for an average email user. I have no problem with the sale -- but the time span is not acceptable. They have to show some respect.

There should be no breach of data protection. All they'll be doing is allowing Tourism Ireland to have ireland.com as a host address for their webservers. Irish Times won't be giving out any information relating to your accounts to anyone else.

Sorentox wrote: »

Then send the same email to the Consumer Association of Ireland:-

cai@thecai.ie

The notification that the user has changed email address from .....@ireland.com to ......@...... should stay in Place for 6 to 12 months for thoses who need it.


ireland.com had 15,000 users that attracted advertising revenue .... now we are not neeeded (most users paid and supported this venture in the early days too)....now it's sold - fine - but we do diserve a little respect. People who email us should not receive and "Error / Undelivered mail" message after Dec 7th.

Storm in a Teacup. From what I read earlier in the thread, everything is being done in accordance with their T&C's.

gadgetman101

ok im another victim and i stupidly used it for my very small company. its gone so where do i go i don't want a gmail or vodafone or outlook address any suggestions please.

dahamsta

As others have suggested, register your own domain name and get a hosting account. If your primary target market is Ireland, get a .IE domain name; if not, go for a .COM. A domain name and budget hosting account shouldn't cost you more than €50-100/year. And please, buy Irish!

28064212

dahamsta wrote: »

As others have suggested, register your own domain name and get a hosting account. If your primary target market is Ireland, get a .IE domain name; if not, go for a .COM. A domain name and budget hosting account shouldn't cost you more than €50-100/year. And please, buy Irish!

Depends on how cheap you want to go. I have my own .com domain and email set-up. Costs: €14.50 for two years. Just register a domain and set it up with Google Apps, free for up to 10 users

dahamsta

I assumed when he said he didn't want Gmail, he wouldn't want Google Apps either. Each to their own. Me, I don't put business mail in the cloud, but then I'm spoiled with my own servers.

EDIT: Here's my opinion on cheap. Affordable I like. Not cheap.

28064212

dahamsta wrote: »

I assumed when he said he didn't want Gmail, he wouldn't want Google Apps either. Each to their own. Me, I don't put business mail in the cloud, but then I'm spoiled with my own servers.

Well, he said "gmail [...] address", so I assumed that they just didn't want "x@gmail.com". You know what they say about assumptions

dahamsta wrote: »

EDIT: Here's my opinion on cheap: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=81286649#post81286649

I actually do use an Irish registrar, but Boards doesn't allow discussions on hosting or registrar providers (for good reason), so I didn't mention it

watty

I have .net, .com .info .org and .biz for different purposes. No need for Google Apps (no privacy or long term assurance of operation)

.ie is too expensive and also restrictive on names. I do use Irish hosting and registrar services and a really Irish ISP. (hint, UPC and Eircom are not Irish, though if UPC was available here I'd be mad not to switch to them).

cgarvey

gadgetman101 wrote: »

ok im another victim and i stupidly used it for my very small company.

You're not alone, but at least now you see why it's ill-advised. If you value your brand/name/business, and you do anything online, you need to protect your brand/name by registering your own domain (and making sure to renew it, or transfer it, in a timely fashion so that you don't lose it to squatters).

Once you have your domain, you can control where it's hosted, and move it around as needs be. For example, if you're happy to try out the free Google Apps, you can move your domain away from there at a later stage if you find their webspace (with Google branding) not professional enough for your business, etc.

Owning your domain is step 1. After that there are plenty of options from free to premium hosting services for your email & website.

cgarvey

Sorentox wrote: »

It hasn't always been free -- I paid a subscription for years. [snip]

Doesn't change my opinion that free-loaders' sense of entitlement doesn't add up. Nor did you answer either of my two questions (which directed at you!).

Again, I can appreciate we'd all love more time, but at least there is 1 month.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Dave! wrote: »

mitosis wrote: »

I am sad to lose mine. As I was to lose my @oceanfree.net, and @iolfree.ie

Was just about to post to ask about @oceanfree.net

My dad still uses this address and doesn't have any problems - who is maintaining that service still?! Oceanfree are long gone AFAIK

My wife and I continue to use Oceanfree to this day, having used it since the first week it launched.

I just checked on whois and it is owned by Esat BT, as is IOLFree.ie.

If they ever pulled Oceanfree.net from under me, like the Irish Times have done to Ireland.com, I would be deeply aggrieved. :mad:

cgarvey

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

If they ever pulled Oceanfree.net from under me, like the Irish Times have done to Ireland.com, I would be deeply aggrieved. :mad:

Out of interest, are you more inclined, now, to start moving away from OceanFree?

dahamsta

Hi watty,

watty wrote: »

.ie is too expensive and also restrictive on names.

While I accept it's twice the price of most gTLDs and probably should continue to drop in price, twenty notes is hardly expensive. It's an hour in the pub like. A year.

And while again I'll accept that it's restrictive on names, I've never had any trouble registering domains either for myself or for my customers. It's all in the approach.

And remember, that restrictiveness and relative expense means better /choice/ -- try and register a generic word or phrase in .com and see how far you get!

I'm not a big fan of some aspects of the registry operations, in fact the CEO has made an enemy of me over the recent - and ongoing - security fork-up over google/yahoo.ie, but the managed registry model does have its advantages.

watty

In fairness the restrictions have been relaxed and it's better than the wild west of .com and .net But no excuse on price, of course if it's for commercial purposes then €20 isn't a deal breaker but annoying when alternates are €7

ItHurtsWhenIP

cgarvey wrote: »

Out of interest, are you more inclined, now, to start moving away from OceanFree?

Do you know something - if you hadn't asked, I probably wouldn't have given it a moment's thought.

I wouldn't be at all surprised that if the ireland.com goes away with a whimper, then Esat BT will probably reckon that they could get away with dropping their free-loaders.

I think I might just stake out my own little piece of the Internet, all for me and my wife. :eek:

cgarvey

Might be no harm. The OceanFree domain is probably safe enough in that it's pointing to an ISP who already provide an email service (i.e. no big deal for them to continue to host OceanFree mail as well). However, it's also a domain old enough, with an obscure enough history, and not of any particular importance to the ISP, that it might just be subjected to either a business decision, or an IT admin decision/mistake to get switched off in a whim. Don't want to scare monger, and it's probably a lot safer than ireland.com (who aren't in the ISP business), but it's food for thought none the less!

watty

iol.ie ?

OldDogHardRoad

I'm another of the 15 year customers and not very happy with IT and their very shoddy 'customer service'.
I've added this as an autoreply to my @ireland.com email.

After 15 years as a customer, the Irish Times is closing this account with 3 weeks notice on 7th November 2012. Please update my contact details to mynewname@email.com and consider NOT buying the Irish Times in the future.