Legal Question in Technology Law in Illinois

Revocation of email address

In 1996, I signed up for a dial-up internet account with a local service provider. A few years later, they were purchased by a big, national provider. The email address I used with the original provider continued to work, and I continued to use it as my online identity. I no longer use the dial-up service, but use the email address.

The company sent us a letter a week ago that they are cancelling all dial-up accounts before January 9, 2002. They will forward to another email address for thirty days after that, but that's it. They're getting out of the dial-up business. They gave us no way to retain the current email addresses, and do not seem willing to negotiate this at all.

Now, they own the domain. They provided me with email service for the fees I paid them over the years. But this significantly changes my internet presence: people I have given the address to over the years will no longer be able to reach me, all sites with which I do business will have to have accounts either modified or deleted and recreated, and I lose my identity.

Is there anything I can do here?


Asked on 12/18/01, 1:18 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bruce Burdick Burdick Law Firm

Re: Revocation of email address

The solution to this type of problem is to switch to Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail or one of the other browser based mail programs. That makes you independent of any ISP. I did that a couple of years ago, and have switched ISP's and jobs several times since then without missing a beat. Most of my close relatives and I like mail.yahoo.com best. My brother like hotmail. If you do it that way, it matters not what ISP you have. Otherwise, you are SOL, as you are now. Your ISP has no obligation to keep you going at all, so they are being generous in the 30 day continuation. My suggestion is get on yahoo mail and send everyone on your address list a notice of change of email address.

This is not a legal question since you ISP is within their rights to cut you off.

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Answered on 12/18/01, 4:40 pm


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