Our reason of contacting you is purely based on seeking your assistance. To tell you more about us, our names are Merit Maiga . I am 27years old while my younger sister is 19 years old we are the only children of our late parents Mr and Mrs Maiga Shaibu and we are living here in Abidjan, the capital city of Cote d Ivoire in West Africa.I am a student with the focus mass communication but the sudden death of our father. I forced myself to discontinue my studies because no one could sponsor my studies again. My mother died many years back when I was just 8 years old and since then I and my younger sister have been with my father and he took me so special as the only son.

His death was so sudden and was caused by food poisoning as the doctor said in his death certificate but we are suspecting one of my uncle who always travel with him any time he is making overseas trip as the person who planned his death, well only God knows the truth. The issue now is that I and my younger sister want to move out of this country immediately to a more secured place where we will live for the rest of our lives because since the death of our father, his brothers and other family relatives have all taken over all my late father's belongings including his business and houses and they don't even want to consider me and my younger sister.

In my own case, my father was a business man who delt on Cocoa exportation to Europe and he made a lot of money from this business and own alot of properties and houses, his brothers have taken control of all these things and they can even kill me too if I should ask about them. For this reason, I dont want to be associated with them again. However, my father confided a secret to me before his death in the hospital here. He told me that he deposited a consignment in a security company here in Abidjan Cote D Ivoire, a Trunk box containing the sum of ($9,300,000). and no one knows about this, not even the security company because he registered the content of the box as Family Valuables. He told me that it was because of his wealth that he was poisoned and that I should seek a trust worthy person in a country of my choice who could assist me to claim and invest this money.

Dear Beloved One, this is the main reason I contacted you. I want you to help me claim this consignment/trunk box (CASH) from the security company here in Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire to your country and also help me and my younger sister to relocate to your country to continue our lives over there. This country is no longer safe for my continual stay because every day here I am living under the fear of those my late father's relatives. We are no longer living in our family house because they might try to kill us since they want to inherit all my late father's properties. If you agree to help me, I will compensate you with 20% of the total sum and also you will manage these funds in any good investment while we will continue our studies and every income made will be shared between us. Thank you and I look forward to your positive response.

Consider this and get back to me as soon as possible. Through my email at (meritmaiga@yahoo.com)
Thanks.My Sincere regards.
Merit Maiga

This is more like a company blocking domains like twitter.com, facebook.com. Maybe I'm defining too narrowly, but I thought you were talking about a service provider denying accounts b/c they were tied to freemail addresses.

This is more like a company blocking domains like twitter.com, facebook.com. Maybe I'm defining too narrowly, but I thought you were talking about a service provider denying accounts b/c they were tied to freemail addresses.

“This is the only way I can check my e-mail,” said Navy dependent Patricia Rovito of the computer at the Naples library. Rovito waited ten months to get telephone service and still has no Internet access at home. “This is going to be a pretty sizable hit to morale,” she added.

Again, this is an old article, but it indicates some of the concerns about those services. And of course, the non-free services are always wonderful and safe…

And, it could also be my inner techno geek that twitches. But, I hope it is my “brand awareness” geek

I like the comparison to fashion, which has different applications in different situations, e.g. in a tech scenario, you better roll w/GMail or your own domain, whereas in accounting or retail who cares?

I singled out consumer accounts for this discussion, but as the freelance writer who wrote the initial piece mentions, for independent types w/o technical chops, the email often doubles as work and personal. Not the choice I'd make, but I get it.

Makes complete sense to hold onto an inbox you've had for 10 years and that you pay to use.

I don't really have an opinion on .info or .name domains, but I do enjoy the foreign domain to make a word or name, e.g. ma.tt. Well worth the additional money for the cool factor.

Excellent point about keeping multiple accounts, even if one isn't used except for notifications like “hey, your ticket is updated, and your domain is still down, sorry”.

I can't imagine why you'd give brownie points to personal domain hosters (cough, @dannorris.com), makes sense though for a technical person to have those skills.

I remember Netzero, specifically when they were providing dial-up for free. Saw an ad on TV for them the other day; their pitch is weird.