[buran77]

No, but Google holds monopoly over that email address that you've been using and passing around for years, and all the data associated to it. Losing access to it can prove to be a major issue.

Of course this is nowhere near as critical as water, food, or shelter. But in the modern world losing access to your long time email address, like a phone number, will cause some pain. I see no reason not to put such a responsibility on Google or companies of similar size which are so tightly integrated with the critical modern infrastructure.

I think we need to look at the utility of the service in the world and society we live in. Things change, 400 years ago a mill was the first utility in the US. That doesn't quite fit the definition anymore these days.

[themacguffinman]

If a monopoly over your essential email address is the motivation, then every single provider no matter the size has a monopoly over your email address. There's no reason to limit your judgement to "companies of similar size". Would you argue that ProtonMail and Fastmail and so forth are equally responsible for your email address?

Let's go further. Is Apple a public utility? If I buy an iPhone and it's painful to lose it, doesn't Apple have a monopoly over my iPhone given that they have kill switches and update privileges?

Is Hertz a public utility? If I rent a car and it becomes very painful to lose it, doesn't Hertz have a monopoly over my essential car?

[buran77]

I appreciate the time you took to come up with the examples but I hope you can see they're not quite comparable. An email address, like a phone number, identifies you uniquely. But unlike phone numbers there's no "portability", you can't take your gmail address with you to yahoo. Losing access to your email is more akin to losing access to your name than to an appliance of sorts.

A phone or a car are nowhere near that level of uniqueness. People don't need your IMEI or VIN number to identify you. You can still have a backup of your data which for all intents and purposes will turn any other phone into the one that was taken from you. And if Hertz somehow just takes back your car full of your personal stuff you have plenty of recourse. Most other critical industries were either regulated as utilities or self regulated.

The problem is that companies like Google give you the service ostensibly for free and use this to justify being able to completely cut access to your account with absolutely no recourse and no explanation. You didn't pay anything so you can't expect anything. On the other hand they do monetize your data which invalidates the "for free" premise. They also don't give you any possibility to transfer the ownership of those uniquely identifying elements.

Perhaps any mail provider like ProtonMail or Fastmail should also be regulated as utilities. When electricity was deemed a utility it was probably used by fewer people and it was less useful to them than mail is today. At the very least companies like Google, Apple, and the rest of the bunch should be very tightly regulated.

You can use maps or youtube without an account but you will never receive that job offer without your email. And you may not be able to access your other critical accounts since they rely on email.

Let's put it another way: maybe an email provider should not be allowed to be used for critical services like banking, utilities, public services, etc. unless they themselves accept to be regulated as utilities. The point is to not have critical services relying on ones with a proven low quality of service track record.

[themacguffinman]

I wasn't talking about a phone number or IMEI or VIN, I was talking about an iPhone. An iPhone can identity me if I setup iMessage, which is based on a phone number but effectively takes it over so that Apple receives all texts sent by other iPhone users on my behalf until I unregister it in some way. It's a common complaint that just switching to an Android phone can result in lost messages and is a notable switching cost.

People use my address to identify me too. Does that make my rented home a public utility? I can't take my home address with me. I guess my landlord should be forced by law to renew my lease indefinitely otherwise I'll lose my geographical name.

> You can use maps or youtube without an account but you will never receive that job offer without your email. And you may not be able to access your other critical accounts since they rely on email.

Of course you can receive job offers without a specific email. You can update your job seeking profile and inform companies you've applied to of a new email. It's also entirely up to you to share additional forms of contact like a phone number when you apply.

Any account critical enough to be considered a public utility like banking, utilities, public services, etc won't be solely based on email and will have non-email recovery mechanisms, usually based on your actual identity.

[ljm]

A phone number is less of a problem as you have portability. Or you can have it. In the UK for example, regulation means that you can automatically transfer your number between providers at no cost. It's a painless process.

That's going to be a lot more difficult when your email address is tied to a certain domain, like gmail. I think there has to be a different kind of solution there, that is more accessible to the layman than setting up your own domain and dealing with MX records and stuff.