Can I keep my bellsouth.net email address and move the hosting away from Yahoo?

Thread Starter

tracecom

Joined Apr 16, 2010
3,944
My question is in the title. As most of you have heard, Yahoo data was pilfered in 2013. Through a long string of occurrences, Yahoo ended up hosting bellsouth.net email accounts including mine. I am loath to change my email address and wonder if I can keep the address and move the hosting. The domain, bellsouth.net is no longer associated with BellSouth (one of the "baby bells,") because Bellsouth no longer exists; it was absorbed by Southwestern Bell which is now going under the alias of AT&T (which they also absorbed.) Where is Judge Greene when you need him?

Is there a way to keep my xxxxxxxx@bellsouth.net email address, and get out the clutches of Yahoo?

Thanks.
 

shteii01

Joined Feb 19, 2010
4,644
My WAG is that the answer is: no. Domains are registered, the people/organizations pay money for them. You may say that it is a corporate asset.
 

djsfantasi

Joined Apr 11, 2010
9,156
Why do you think you're in Yahoo!'s clutches? The domain bellsouth.net still belongs to AT&T. And all email is sent through servers which also are registered to AT&T.
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
Probably a good idea to change email addresses every few years anyway. Cuts down on the spam.

If you want to keep the same domain then just buy one. Should only run you $25-$30 a year.
 

MrSoftware

Joined Oct 29, 2013
2,188
I'm in the same boat as you, but having my same email address since I think the early 1990's, I haven't had the stomach to change it.. yet. But I'll share my plan in case it helps you.

I'm going to register my own domain and let Google host the email processing (free). Then I'm going to set my bellsouth email to forward to the google hosted account. Now you won't miss any email while you run around discovering all the places that you need to change your email address. With your own domain, you can take your email address to any host. If you decide not to like Google, just get a new host but keep your same email address.
 
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