On the 11th day of Christmas TalkTalk took from me... the email address of my company
- Reference: 1606741265
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/11/30/talktalkbusiness_email_axe/
- Source link:
Users of talktalkbusiness.net have received notification that TalkTalk intends to shut down email services for the domain. As of 4 January 2021, email addresses for the domain will simply cease to exist.
It's all very on point for 2020.
The email of doom starts cheerily enough: "TalkTalk Business is always working to deliver the best possible service for our customers."
Sadly, however, the best possible service appears to be no service at all as the company continued: "We are ceasing our legacy email domain servers, which will affect all emails with the following domain: XXXXX@talktalkbusiness.net."
Things then got bleaker: "This means that this email address will no longer exist or be usable from 4th January 2021. We do not intend to provide a replacement mail service."
In true Scrooge style, TalkTalk has no solace for customers facing a Christmas of urgent migration. As of the fourth, there will be no inbound email and outbound mail is likely to be borked as well.
The solution? "Sign up to an email service that is independent of TalkTalk Business (e.g. Gmail, Outlook.com, 1&1)" or register a domain and roll your own.
TalkTalk has been desperately trying to kill off its legacy email services – [1]2019 saw warnings issued to holders of Tiscali email addresses and former OneTel customers were treated to a forced upgrade to TalkTalk Mail [2]or else .
Register reader Rupert Walker told us that the notification was the first his customer (a 15-year veteran of the service in all its different guises) had received.
"Yes," he said, "we can get the systems sorted and a change of email in place before the 4th Jan but no chance of updating the accounts of all the contacts and businesses that use them."
The latter is a serious concern since those with the old email address will find their messages undeliverable once the plug is pulled.
"I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice," Walker remarked.
TalkTalk Business is by no means the only show in town when it comes to killing off legacy domains. The Demon subdomain wheezed its last [3]earlier this year , although [4]the cut-off was extended following an outcry at the short notice.
Updating contacts that might have been using the same address for over a decade is, after all, never easy.
The Register contacted TalkTalk regarding the axing and deadline, but we have yet to receive an explanation. ®
Get our [5]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/04/talktalk_kills_tiscali_legacy_email_addresses/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/05/talktalk_onetel/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/15/namesco_demon_subdomain/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/30/demon_extension/
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Phishing
Gentlemen and yahoo boys! Phishing poles, nets, and spears at the ready! Set! Go!
" or register a domain and roll your own."
There are service providers who will act as registrars and mail service providers. Having your own domain does not mean having to run your own server.
A business with a gmail, hotmail or whatever address rather than its own domain raises a flag with me (and it's surprising - or maybe not - how many offers of web site design, app design, SEO etc come from allaged businesses without a domain to call their own). A TalkTalk address would have raised an even bigger flag.
... and if your're going to get your own domain please, please ensure that you have the registration directly with the domain service provider. Have seen too many examples of an organisation paying for a domain via a third party (web designer etc) only to have their domain suspended/cancelled because the third party hasn't paid the required subscription fees. Use third party services if relevant but always register the domain directly.
please ensure that you have the registration directly with the domain service provider
Absolutely. One of the first things I did in the current role was to take control of our own domains, it took me a few years to manage it and I ended up having to pay one company a significant transfer fee to release a domain but we got there. All our domains are directly with two providers (UK and Aus) and in our name.
As much as I despise Google's anti privacy antics, getting my dad up and running with his own domain with GSuite literally took minutes
I cring when I still see buisnesses using @live, hotmail et al as their biuisness email
"A business with a gmail, hotmail or whatever address rather than its own domain raises a flag with me"
A lot of the ones I see like this are usually one man bands like window cleaners, builders or holiday lets, basically non-tech small businesses who set their email addresses up years ago and either don't have the knowledge or will to change it.
It's those that plainly have bought a domain name, as they quote a website, but then have an @hotmail as the contact email that bug me ....
I wish I could upvote this many times.
Even my non-IT daughter, in her short-lived business venture, without any prompting from me, set up her own domain for a mail address even though the mail was redirected to Hotmail/Outlook/Live/$CurrentMSBrand.
@talktalkbusiness.net
I can't help wondering how many businesses it would effect. From a PR point of view having that as part of your email address implies you are either way too small to have your own domain or really cheap. In other words you're a Mickey Mouse operation, a very very small rodent of an operation.
I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice
I just can't believe that businesses that depend upon email use a third party email service (and put up with the whims of such).
It's not hard, or expensive, to register a domain name with a service like OVH. You get a little bit of webspace and an email address (with aliases). More space or addresses? Buy a higher tier offering.
The upsides? Your email service (they run the server), your domain name (looks more professional), and if they should pull the plug on you (unlikely as it's their business, but hypothetically) then just shift your domain to a different host.
Re: I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice
I agree. Ease aside, the only reason I can think of not getting your own domain and email address is if you've got a very common business name and can't get a web address to match it. However, even an address that''s not identical to the company name looks better, IMO, than something tagged talktalk or btinternet .
Re: I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice
or you have had the address long before having your own business domain was the thing to do
Re: I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice
Thinking and caring are two different things.
I think us geeks here are guilty of mixing up businesses with tech businesses.
Most (small) non-tech business I know couldn't give the slightest shit about computers, phones, internet connections, domains, websites and all that malarky. They absolutely know they need such evil things but look elsewhere for that stuff to get sorted out, to enable them to concentrate on what they do & the reason they're in business - plastering walls, preparing food, whatever. For the same reason they're likely to call a plumber if the sink breaks, they're likely to rely on other people or business to sort their tech.
Even though *I* have long held it makes loads of sense to have a domain and at the very least forward your mail to somewhere so the address people know never evaporates, why on earth should we expect a business owner to understand, nay second-guess that this might happen? Or even that it "looks bad" just cos _we_ all know that @talktalkbusiness looks bollocks (and even then, not for any good reason other than we know TalkTalk is bollocks).
Going to someone that holds themselves out as SomethingSomething *business* seems like a perfectly good idea on the face of it. If I'm a business, I've bought a business service from a big place that provides business services. It even has business in the name. Sounds good to me. The likes of us and/or regulation should be holding the likes of TalkTalk to a higher standard.
...have a domain and at the very least forward your mail to somewhere ...
... especially because when forwarded, some kind of Sender Policy Framework "feature" will manifest itself, and all your email will get dropped because the service forwarding it isn't the same as the service where it originated, hence next hop (e.g. your isp, just before you grab it) "knows" it is forged and silently deletes it.
I don't forward from my personal domains any more, I download directly from the hosting service using imap.
True. Like the local garage I use for the MOT. They've been on XP for years and last year were still on it with the database they use just be slapped in MSAccess. I was going to offer services to upgrade but knew they probably didn't give a shit.
Went recently and someone has obviously told them as they are now on Windows 10 but with the same database in MSAccess. Which is all fine, I'm just curious to know if that machine is connected to the Internet and how secure that database is. Again, I suspect they don't give a shit.
Car Mechanics are not IT people
Not all Car Mechanics are going to be an IT whizz. I help my car mechanic out with IT. Him and all the staff are techno-phobic. Can't do anything about that. Computers are not their "thing".
In his case he has a Windows XP system running an really archaic database for creating his invoices. It works. He knows how to make it work. That is all he needs. A "Cloud Solution" would be far too weird for him.
Earlier this year that XP PC was still running. ZERO connection to the internet so it is safe as houses. (Also how many hackers would even know how to break into XP anyway?)
As the PC was getting old, he now has a Win10 box. (I pointed out the PC was as old as his son... and his son can now legally buy beer) And that XP system? Happy in a VM with zero access to the Internet, but he can keep working.
Car mechanics don't use email. Clients phone or drive in.
(I think if I talked about the other Engineering guy who is using DOS you would have kittens... :D)
"they don't give a shit"
Giving a shit only occurs after some major disaster has befallen them, whether it's ransomware, disk failure, phishing attack, virus infection or the secretary watering the houseplants plants on top of the "hard disk". Then they will do a bit of (but probably not enough) shit giving, though many of them will almost certainly try to find a scapegoat to blame first.
This is the point the address has been in use for over 15 years way before getting your own domain as a small business was a thing.
"Most (small) non-tech business I know couldn't give the slightest shit about computers, phones, internet connections, domains, websites and all that malarky."
OTOH many small non-tech businesses very often do care about branding and a domain name is part of that.
Talk Talk.
Such a shame. They must be Living in a Another World.
Haven't heard back yet?
Kinda hard to email folks that are turning their email servers off innit?
*Runs away before you hurt me*
I would be very unlikely to do business with a company using talktalkbusiness.net (or gmail.com or whatever). It's not likes it costs much to get you're own email domain, and once you have that you can point it wherever you choose.
So you have your own domain what email address did you use to register it?
This is not implied that it's the main advertised email address but you still need an account for other things to do with running a business.
They're handling this so badly, why not just migrate all the addresses over to the new service and let the users keep their current addresses? Nothing is stopping that, it's very easy to do. maintaining a few extra domains is very cheap.
No problem ....
" or register a domain and roll your own."
Switch to talktalkbusiness.sucks. Currently available for just $199 from here: [1]https://www.get.sucks
[1] https://www.get.sucks
TalkTalk
It is high time that it's customers WalkWalk.