[OtomotO]

Would it suffice (tech aside for a moment!) if you could migrate your email adress with you from one provider to the next?

Like for phone numbers (at least here you can migrate the whole number, even with ndc)

The state could give out an emailadress like a social security number and you just use that as an alias and can choose whatever provider you want.

And for these emailadresses the providers would be obliged to take you. (Like for mandatory insurances. We have them where I live)

[akvadrako]

You already can do that. Just buy a domain name, like mySSN.us. You are free to point it at any email provider of your choosing.

[OtomotO]

I do that, but you're still at the whim of a corpo and have no real legal right to that domain/email adresses.

Also it's kind of technical. Perfect for a nerd like me, but e.g. for my mum? Nope!

[akvadrako]

Once you buy it you have a legal right to it.

It is a bit technical, but that can be solved without involving the government. You just need the registrar and email providers to talk to each other with OAuth plus some DNS delegation protocol.

[dento]

Regional domain providers, i.e. .cc country code domains, usually give you legal rights to that domain as long as you pay the fees.

[severino]

Interesting. So if you want to have some kind of legal protection over your domain, the best bet is buying a .cc domain (from the country you currently live in, I suppose) but no chance when buying a .com, .org domain, right?

[mark-wagner]

Yes, and .is (Iceland) is pretty good. See https://slc.is/#The%20Best%20TLD%20is%20Not%20.com which somewhat summarizes https://www.eff.org/files/2017/08/02/domain_registry_whitepa...