On the 11th day of Christmas TalkTalk took from me... the email address of my company

There is an early Christmas present for customers of TalkTalk Business as the company prepares to swing the axe on a legacy email service. 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 …

[Pascal Monett]

TalkTalk

It is high time that it's customers WalkWalk.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: TalkTalk

Ohh my foolish friend.

Cue up the Talk Talk/Mike Hollis references now:

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: TalkTalk

You know when you've been dido-ed…

(Yes, I know she doesn't anti-work there any more, but the black hole effect still lingers…)

It's also just as well that businesses (and the rest of us) don't also have any other very critical and as yet undefined important business changes to occupy us immediately after 31 December 2020, isn't it? Having said that, any business, even a small one, using TalkTalk in any shape or form practically deserves to go bust…

[Uplink]

Phishing

Gentlemen and yahoo boys! Phishing poles, nets, and spears at the ready! Set! Go!

[Doctor Syntax]

" 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.

[Hiya]

... 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.

[GlenP]

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.

[Alan Brown]

"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 "

I've seen a number of cases where the "third party" then sold the domain to someone else for fun and profit

Good luck getting any happy resolution when that happens.

[Oh Matron!]

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

[Evil Harry]

"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.

[irrelevant]

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 ....

[Harestone]

I wish I could upvote this many times.

[Alan Brown]

" but then have an @hotmail as the contact email that bug me ...."

They don't seem to appreciate that hotmail's T&Cs expressly PROHIBIT use for business purposes either

Yes, you can get such addresses cancelled. Ask me how I know.... (evilgrin)

[Doctor Syntax]

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.

[dave 81]

"...own domain raises a flag with me"

On a tangent, but related, one of my flags is when I see a business telephone number where they have the area code in London as 020x or in Reading 01189. I immediately know that this business is to thick to understand how area codes and local phone numbers work. Best see if there is a more intelligent provider out there.

[Terry 6]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

I sort of agree. Any London business with a (newish) van that reads 0208 xxx xxxx worries me a bit. I don't get quite as bothered as I used to, since so few people use landlines now - and mobiles need the full number anyway.

[andy gibson]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

Back on Phoneday (1995) Sheffield moved to a new dialling code (0742 to 0114) and switched from six digits to seven for telephone numbers.

The amount of businesses that *still* have their number shown as [phone] is staggering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

"I immediately know that this business is to [sic] thick to understand how area codes and local phone numbers work"

To be fair most people are experts in something you and I are not. I don't let number arrangement bother me anymore because I never dial the local part by itself anyway. As far as I'm concerned, a UK telephone number is a string of numbers normally starting with +44 or zero.

[dave 81]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

I know that too, but it bugs me alot. And most people couldn't give a monkeys.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

It bugs me A LOT that people cannot understand that is two separate words, not one four-letter word. Still, that isn't as bad as the person who insisted on writing or typing "uh lot" because that what was he said...

[Alan Brown]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

"to be fair most people are experts in something you and I are not"

Showing a seven-digit local number which plainly WILL NOT WORK if dialled as-is shows a pretty fucking braindead approach to doing business

You start wondering how such companies STAY in business

[Terry 6]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

It's stay, not expand in business.

The number on the side of a van/shop frontage etc. is to attract new customers- tell 'em your number.

It won't lose them customers who get their details by recommendation - but it will block off an extra source of business. So they can stay in business if they don't rely on passing trade.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

In Sheffield there's been a long-standing shop frontage claiming it's phone number is 01142 2xx-xxxx. Yes, they've put the 2 *both* on the dialling code *and* on the local number, completely destroying it.

Just yesterday I spotted a second one. A take-away. Too thick to notice they have actively gone out of their way to prevent any potential customers contacting them.

[Dave559]

Re: "...own domain raises a flag with me"

Perhaps the most worrying thing about the "0207" fan club is that a lot of the members of it seem to be journalists (or at least reporters or newsreaders, not necessarily the same thing) or other media relations "professionals" who, given that it is their whole job to relay information clearly, succinctly, and correctly, Really Ought To Know Better, grrrr…

[Anonymous Coward]

@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.

[Terry 6]

Re: @talktalkbusiness.net

This is talktalk business and small companies employing a dozen or so staff would quite reasonably use this. They aren't big enough to have their own tech support, may not be in a tech industry and have little or no knowledge or interest. They just wan an email system that works.

But that "very very small" " Mickey Mouse" operations is a couple of dozen, or more, livelihoods, not including the thin margins of their suppliers etc. Multiplied by by thousands of businesses. And in a Pandemic with lockdown etc.

This could be the difference between survival till things recover or failure for many of these companies.

We can't all work for Amazon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: We can't all work for Amazon

And a lot of us here would never want to sacrifice ourselves to the great (sic) god (sic) Bezos.

Avoid Amazon if at all possible especially with the recent AWS meltdown (As covered here)

[heyrick]

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.

[Headley_Grange]

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 .

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I just can't believe for a business service they think just over 1 month is enough notice

The very small business I work for registered their domain in 1996.

How many generic email addresses are still around from before then?

[Doctor Syntax]

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.

[Steve Davies 3]

re: Thinking and caring are two different things

Talk-Talk have a history of doing neither of those things and many of us older commentators know only too well.

[Alan Brown]

Re: 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)."

You would be completely gobsmacked how many use the email@domain provided by their broadband ISP and end up being vendor-locked as a result

Utterly self-inflicted

[tin 2]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

[steviebuk]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

[Stoneshop]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

Him and all the staff are techno-phobic.

I doubt that. Very, very strongly.

Computer-phobic I'd grant you.

But a techno-phobic car mechanic? There are few jobs where you don't have to deal with technology at all anyway, and ones that do so in the most limited way imaginable are also scarce and getting more scarce every year.

[katrinab]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

"Car mechanics don't use email."

Are you sure? I have no doubt that customers don't book their appointments by email, but getting invoices from suppliers and stuff like that, that will be over email.

[heyrick]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

My mechanic, until he retired two years ago, used an invoicing system that worked on DOS on what looked like an original XT, with 5.25" floppies. He never saw any reason to change because what he had worked.

As for ordering, phone call with confirmation fax. Fax is still used around here as a signed piece of paper sent by fax carries legal weight, the same sent as an attachment by email does not, because it isn't a direct connection and could easily be modified en-route.

As for technophobe, he had no idea about new-fangled stuff such as ODB2. He was great at maintaing any car that predates computers inside, but sadly technology kind of left him behind. Or maybe, given the many restrictions on messing around with managed engines, he didn't think it was worthwhile even bothering?

[Nifty]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

I still get a touching handwitten postcard from my garage when the annual service/MOT is due.

[TRT]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

My old mechanic found out my job and roped me in to keep his old business PC going. This was in 2005. It was an amber screened 286 that used a dialup modem to contact the parts database of his supplier. Managed to repair it (PSU) and source 4 similar chassis for future parts donation from the graveyard at the college I worked at. He was chuffed to bits.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

Scavaging a 10Gb HDD & a Ghost image of the failing drive got me a free MOT & a few other after hours services at a garage in Ilminster.

Here's a pint to Dave (Have you got that Triumph Stag roadworthy yet - Fuck it he wont be reading this anyway) & the legendary Shermie (Who so often got me through any car issues by his love of old cars, welder & MOT inspector, he was also a IT Guy, TV\Radio repair & cider press repair guy (That's just the start of the many hats I saw him wear)). He truely was\is your go to man.

Icon - Here's a pint of scrumpy until the next time I'm down in the shire(s).

[Jim Whitaker]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

I hope that was reflected in your service bills. :-)

[doublelayer]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

This comment is mostly good, but then I saw this: "(Also how many hackers would even know how to break into XP anyway?)". The answer: a lot of them. XP has holes, and if it wasn't patched, some really big holes. Someone who didn't update the operating system, even just to Windows 7, probably doesn't have great patching regimes for the XP boxes. Protection against malware which makes it to execution is almost nil. Protection against external penetration is a little better, depending on the firewall settings, but there are bugs which can allow an automated installation of software without needing the user's permission. Put an XP box on the public internet and someone will be attacking it soon. Put an XP box without the emergency patches from 2017 on the public internet and it'll be in a botnet in half an hour. With luck, most XP machines still in use are either kept offline or at least behind a NAT or restrictive firewall.

[Adelio]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

I am guessing that a lot of these old garage systems NEVER had a network connection, let alone an internet connection so they would be safe (ish)

[IGotOut]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

Interesting comments are garages.

In the UK, now I may be wrong, but a garage can't issue an MOT, WITHOUT an internet connection.

In fact many test devices are also now moving to compulsory internet connections.

[Terry 6]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

While I don't know if it's relevant here. Not every garage is an MOT station. Our local, nearest, for example takes cars to a friend who does the MOT at his place. This is not uncommon. Some just do servicing and repairs and leave MOT to bigger places. Some just don't want to do admin and prefer to keep their hands oily.

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

Internet connection and internet facing are different.

A garage's PC would sit behind a consumer NAT router, which would make it perfectly safe ( as long as you don't go on the web with it... )

[Alan Brown]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

"behind a consumer NAT router, which would make it perfectly safe"

The number of supposedly IT-savvy people perpetuating that particular myth pisses me off

And no, you don't need to go on the web to backdoor this "security"

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

Go on then, tell me how you get past a NAT...

[Alan Brown]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

Until they find they do need a network connection - and suddenyl they're bent over with their trousers down, holding their ankles and screaming "HELLO WORLD"

[DenonDJ DN-2500F]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

My local (independent) garage has a complete online booking ( pick what you need, eg, MOT, headlamp fix, air con, etc) and invoicing system with their own fancy domain

https://www.motburystedmunds.co.uk/

As for old systems and car diagnostics : https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/227828-the-mclaren-f1-supercar-can-only-be-serviced-with-this-ancient-compaq-laptop ( also covered somewhere in The Register)

[Alan Brown]

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

" running an really archaic database for creating his invoices."

That's all you need to know.

Things like Quickbooks have been around for 30+ years and do it PROPERLY

[DJV]

"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.

[andy gibson]

One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of legacy diagnostic software doesn't work on anything other than XP. I diagnose Peugeots freelance and the best software is one that only runs on XP 32 bit.

Yes there are newer programs out there (Diagbox) but its clunky and far less user friendly than good ol Peugeot Planet.

[Down not across]

One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of legacy diagnostic software doesn't work on anything other than XP. I diagnose Peugeots freelance and the best software is one that only runs on XP 32 bit.

That's what VMs are for.

I've had no issues running various vehicle diagnostics/programming tools in a VM (XP or Win7). Admittedly my diagnostics laptop runs win 7 but still.

Mostly issues tend to be due to crappy cables. Some software can be quite touchy about timings especially if you're intending to program any modules. It is worth spending the extra for real FTDI.

[Alan Brown]

"That's what VMs are for."

Most of this stuff runs happily in Wine too

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

[Doctor Syntax]

"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.

[TRT]

Re: Talk Talk.

Oh my foolish friend. For What it’s Worth, give it up before you become a laughing stock.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't heard back yet?

Kinda hard to email folks that are turning their email servers off innit?

*Runs away before you hurt me*

[Grease Monkey]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

[katrinab]

I use a hotmail address for my domain registrations. OVH lets me have a secondary back-up email on the account, and I use gmail for that. Hopefully they won't both go down at the same time.

[doublelayer]

Not relevant to the conversation. There's a GMail address behind my domains, but you don't see that if you want to email the domains in question. Using a single mailbox rather than a domain seems unprofessional, and for certain types or sizes of institution, it is. A single mail address usually means a single mailbox, with everyone having access to it. For that reason, I wouldn't send any personal or financial information to a company using one of those. For something smaller, I don't care so much. It's about what address they want me to use, not what addresses they might have behind the scenes.

[Dave559]

"So you have your own domain what email address did you use to register it?"

That's an interesting bootstrapping question.

When I first registered a domain, I would have used the email address I had with my ISP to register it (but for subsequent domains, I would then have used an address on my first/main domain, so, once you are initially up and running, that is no longer an issue).

Hmm, and for registering with my first ISP, I guess I must have used my Spuddy email address (thanks, sweh!)…?

(And for a Spuddy account, you could self-register an account. I guess if that option hadn't been available to me, only then would I have had to register with my first "proper" ISP by post or «shudder» phone…)

There's a similar issue these days if you want to buy a kitchen knife in a shop. These now come in heat sealed plastic packaging or have zip ties attaching them to a backing board. No problem, just use some scissors! But scissors now also come in heat sealed plastic packaging or have zip ties attaching them to a backing board.

At some point in the future, someone will be setting up home for the first time, and could discover that they don't already have a pair of scissors or have a relative or friend in reach that they can borrow a pair from to start the process…

[Terry 6]

Always carry a Swiss Army knife.

In fact, any kind of travel from home, transition etc.this mini-toolkit is a potential life saver. (Perhaps even literally, who knows what might occur)

[Dave559]

Just as long as you remember to extract your new Swiss Army knife from the heat sealed packaging before you have need to use it, of course!

[Terry 6]

A fair point. There are a fair few people who don't get the idea of being ready before things go wrong. These are the ones who never bothered to wonder where the water turns off- until it starts pouring through the ceiling. Who don't check the oil until a light flicks one. And so on.

[J27]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps TalkTalk could just leak details of all their clients using this domain - then some enterprising IT company can write to them and rescue them?

[Lon24]

No problem ....

" or register a domain and roll your own."

Switch to talktalkbusiness.sucks. Currently available for just $199 from here: https://www.get.sucks

[Doctor Syntax]

"no chance of updating the accounts of all the contacts and businesses that use them."

You don't have to write them individual emails, send out an email to multiple recipients but just remember to put them all in BCC. OK? But we all know what's going to happen, don't we.

One thing to consider - send out the email from the old address, otherwise it'll look like a scam to some recipients. In fact it shod look like a scam to all of them except fellow victims.

[Headley_Grange]

F****** Autofill

I've recently changed mail address. The easy bit was emailing a bunch of contacts with my new address. The hard bit was getting people to use it, because although they updated address books and deleted my old address as requested, the autofill in most of their mail clients still enters my old address when they type my name in the 'send' box. I've got a year before the old hosting expires which was intended to catch any registrations for forgotten accounts and services, so luckily I've got time to help people sort it out their mail settings. The poor buggers on talktalk won't get much time to do any of this, will they?

Oh - and great advice to send the details from the old address - and include something personal if possible otherwise many people, particularly techhies, will just ignore it. I didn't the first time, but I got enough queries to make me send another message from the old mail address

[J.G.Harston]

Re: F****** Autofill

I still get dribs and drabs of emails from people saying they've been trying to contact me on my old *.demon.* address that expired years ago, and eventually they have discovered my current address - which I've had for more than a decade.

[MarkTriumphant]

Re: F****** Autofill

I was so pissed off when they stopped supporting *.demon.co.uk - I had been using it since dial-up, and it was such a faff to change everything over. At least I now have a "domain of my own", so it shouldn't happen again.

[Dave559]

Re: F****** Autofill

"the autofill in most of their mail clients still enters my old address"

Which is made doubly worse because too many email programs or systems nowadays (especially mobile apps) have adopted the absolutely fucktarded UI "design" of showing only the person's name in the recipient field and not also the email address, meaning if you have selected (or had auto-selected for you) the wrong email address you have no way of spotting this!

Not to mention the not even remotely unusual concept that someone may have different email addresses (in your address book) for work, home or various other purposes, and you still want to be sure that the email is going to the right one.

And also not to mention that part of the reason that phishing emails often work is because, tada, again fucktarded email clients only show the name and not the email address (not that that's a guarantee that the From line is not a spoofed real address with a different Reply-To, but it still helps).

And (contd. p 94)

(It's the same reason that it's a good idea to always include the day of the week when quoting dates to people: not only does it helpfullly save (each recipient × several seconds) of time for them to not have to look up which day is meant, in case that affects their availability, but it also acts as a sanity check in case you typoed/brainoed the date that you actually meant incorrectly.)

[TRT]

Hm...

The Register contacted TalkTalk regarding the axing and deadline, but we have yet to receive an explanation. ®

Did you contact them on [e-mail]?

[Alan Brown]

Re: Hm...

"Did you contact them on [e-mail]?"

They probably waited the requisite 30 minutes between sending the enquiry and publishing the story, then because the response came in after that, ignored it.

That's my PERSONAL and repeated experience of such "theregister" claims about having "contacted the organisation" - it's their version of "being economical with the truth"

[Anonymous Coward]

OWn domain

Not a great look for Talk Talk, but businesses should be using their own domain for email anyway. Ensures that nonsense like this can't happen. A very small cost for the flexibility it gives. If you don't want email infrastructure, then you can always forward it to a free email service, or get a cheap plan from a cloud email provider.

The companies that I find most bizarre are ones that clearly have a domain for their website, but STILL use AOL, TalkTalk, Hotmail, Gmail, BigPond, etc domains for their email.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: OWn domain

Legacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Own domain

Nothing stops them for still receiving the legacy emails, while moving to their own domain for future email. Easy enough to configure both to be delivered to the same mailbox. Done this for many SMBs in the past once they obtain their own domain.

[Cynical Pie]

So although Dido Harding has left...

Her legacy of stellar customer service and business foresight looms large over Talk Talk even now.

Is it any wonder Track and Trace (among other things) has been such a sh!t show!!!

[Alan Brown]

Re: So although Dido Harding has left...

Dildo Softon merely exemplified the supreme awfulness of a company which was awful long before she was appointed.

[Jim Whitaker]

Why on earth does any organisation calling itself a "business" rely on a service such as this? Getting your own domain, getting it hosted with someone who provides an email service is so cheap and easy to do. If this one month notice is all that TalkTalk has given, then that is bad practice. I would reward that with a migration away from TalkTalk. If they did give decent notice before, then the fault is entirely on those who ignored that notice.

[Jay 2]

Not everyone is like the average El Reg reader, so I can see why smaller businesses may have used such an email setup. But Talk Talk only giving a month's notice for the closure of the service is completely shit (though to be honest, would we expect anything else from them?). As someone above said, moving to a new email address etc is just about viable in that timeframe, but getting anyone to take any notice of it (esp over a pandamic hit holiday period) is a different matter.

[Giles C]

The timing is the worst bit.

Let’s announce on the 1st of December we are shutting down a service that you have just used for years.

So in December instead of the normal 25 working days we only have 23.

Effectively most businesses are shut from the 25th to the 4th jan.

It is the busiest time for a lot of businesses who will be trying to stay afloat after the effect of the lockdown.

A lot of the customers for this sort of service will probably be small one man retail or service companies.

The people they need to update will probably be suppliers and invoicing systems.

If they announced today that the service would terminate at the end of March it would give people a couple of invoice cycles to ensure everything had been changed over. But.....

[Alan Brown]

"The timing is the worst bit."

Yes, but.... it's been impossible to GET one of these addresses for years and they HAVE actually had the decency to warn customers for several years that it was going to go away

Giving 1 month notice on an actual drop dead is bad practice but they've been telling people to move for at least 5 years and to be honest in my experience people would scream loudly when given the 30 day notice even if told a year in advance that 1/1/2021 is drop dead date

In that respect, British business operators are just like the British government's preparations for Brexit - ignore the warnings/looming deadline, then make it all someone else's fault when it doesn't go away

This kind of attitude is WHY foreign buyers have tended to avoid "British" products for decades

[Trollslayer]

Domains are cheap

So register one even if it isn't the one you would really like.