Custom Email Domain
I already use Tuta as my email provider. I already have a domain I can use with it (bought privately). What privacy implemcations does it come with.
The main reason is because I would like to be able to keep the same email address for longer and not have to change when/if I change providers.
Google gets lots of your email either way, since many of your correspondents will be on gmail. I've been getting domains mostly from porkbun.com which offers free whois privacy. namesilo.com has it too.
What are this community’s thoughts on Cloudflare?
They front a huge percentage of the internet, so you can pretty much guarantee that all of the three-letter agencies have their fingers in Cloudflare's infrastructure, whether they cooperate willingly or not.
If you care about your privacy you should avoid these kind of infrastructure monopolies, since they are such a juicy target.
Used CF for years, email routing is neat but they aren't a inbox provider. They just give a way to send email to another inbox.
For domain registration? I don't see much of an issue. I also use their DNS services, but not caching or proxying or anything that would allow them access to any data in flight or info on connections to my servers or anything like that. I'm not trying to be anonymous, though, just private.
Domain registrars are required to collect your real information and display it in the Whois database. Many registrars offer a "Whois privacy" service where they put their name and address in the database instead of yours, most charge a fee for this. That's one thing to keep in mind.
The fee has been gone for awhile now, they're required to give it to you for free with a domain.
I do this. Its great because of catchall emails and the ability to make one address per merchant. Then if a company leaks your email or gets hacked, you can simply change the email from [email protected] to [email protected] and block the old address.
It also is good for ownership as you said. If Tuta gets purchased by Google (for example), then you can simply pivot to any of the many other email providers and not rely on a company being not evil.
You seem to have all the same reasoning I did. It is nice to hear someone else confirm it. Also when I need to I still plan on using @tuta.com for things I want more privacy on.
You could find a provider that lets you bring your own domain, and maintain that instead.