I admire Domaining.com founder Francois Carrillo for his determination when it comes to launching new websites with a variety of different business models. According to an email I received this morning, Francois launched a website on Discretion.com, which is now a private emailing service.
The way it works is that a person visits Discretion.com and clicks on the “send a message” button on the bottom of the home page. They are then taken to a page where they can fill out a form to send a message to someone, without the recipient knowing who sent the message. The sender can also choose an option to be notified when the message is opened by the recipient.
On the About us page, there is quite a bit of information about the privacy functionality of Discretion.com. The website reports that they don’t save any data except for encrypted messages for 48 hours. I believe there are similar anonymous email services in existence, although Discretion.com is a good brand name for one.
For a domain name application, I could see people using this to make anonymous offers for domain names. They could target some specific domain names they are in the market to acquire, enter in the email address of the owner, and make an offer to purchase the domain name without that owner knowing who is behind the inquiry. The person inquiring is important for me to know, so I don’t know how that will work.
Personally, I don’t have a need to send messages to someone without them knowing it’s me. My feeling is that the point of email is to be able to send something to someone and have them know it’s coming from me!
I could potentially see this service becoming a problem for Francois. If people send threatening emails and recipients complain to authorities about them, I would assume there could be requests for more information about the sender, which could add up to costly legal fees and other risk. That’s more of a legal question above my paygrade though. My feeling is that people should assume all forms of communication are either monitored or can be monitored, regardless of what is stated on the website.
I wish Francois all the best with this new venture. It’s a very good domain name and it seems to match the service offering.
Blackmailing at its finest… Where do I sign up?
LOL
Thanks for sharing this new service launched by Francois.
Not sure if I am the only one facing this issue but tried couple of times sending an email to myself just to test this service but it says:
“SENDING…
Please be patient.”
I remained patient for at least 5 minutes each time but can’t remain more patient 😉
I feel there is some issue which needs to be addressed and fixed.
These services go back a decade, and you are right some kid does something stupid, it become legal, then owner gets hauled into the mess, great domain though.
It would make a good tipster site. I’ve owned ProxyAnonym.com with the same thought for many years but I am concerned about getting some country or government that will freak out and violate everyone’s 1st amendment rights by filing lawsuits with no merit designed to put you out of business.
Kudos to Francois for launching another brand. Unfortunately from an email hosting perspective services like this are a complete nightmare for the business owner. Although the service is discreet, they will need to monitor it closely to make sure that it isn’t being abused and used for illegal activities.
It’s one those ideas that looks good on paper but like everyone else has written, this will attract a lot of abusers. My inbox is flooded with junk mail enough each day from throw-away email accounts, I really don’t want any more anonymous junk.
Another good try from Francois but one, doesn’t seem to work. Says “be patient for 30 minutes now” Two, a legal nightmare if the wrong people use it. The only people that want anonymous email are people that are doing bad things.
Thanks a lot Elliot for the post.
It’s funny because everyone here is mainly focusing on the less important feature, anonymous mailing.
The main idea when I created this service was absolutely not send anonymous messages but create a communication service maximizing discretion and privacy.
For example I have friends sending me hot photos or crude jokes, but at home everyone (mainly my youngest daugther) use to take my cell for play games, watch photos, …
I was everytime nervous and unsecure she seen something that may hurt her, this from where came the initial idea to can send and receive password protected messages from my cell.
After I added more options to improve confidentiality so everyone could use it for his own reasons.
FYI, I just added this section in the about page that will clarify regarding the use of the service:
While you can send anonymous messages, know we maintain an encrypted file where we log for each message sent (Sent date, Sender IP, Recipient email) to can assist authorities in the case of abuses or legal issues. So do not use Discretion.com for blackmailing, threatening or any other illegal activities.
If you really want to take advantage of discretion, even just for testing, the main point is add your email (https://www.discretion.com/email/), this way when you receive a private message, it is password protected.
A future version probaly will have more features but from now I am focusing most of my time on my next project…
I think a person’s significant other could become suspicious if they start receiving messages like that 🙂
This is another reason why the main use is not to send anonymous emails but exchange secure messages with someone you know.
I am not aware of any sending problem but those that are experiencing any issue please contact me at info [at] cybertonic dot com with details so I can check what happen and assist them. Thanks!
It’s not the business plan I admire, but the willingness to attempt the business plan….Good Luck to Francois Carrillo! P.S. Sure there is competition, but Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. wasn’t first to the game….
I agree.
It’s not that I think Discretion.com is a killer app… it’s the willingness of Francois to try new things.
Absolutely, in fact I finished current version around Christmas but never talk about previously, just decided this morning that it will be interesting to get some feedback about it. It’s not something critical, I will say it allowed me to discover how certain things works for other future services more important for me in a business point of view.
If the system won’t send emails it’s because the NSA is overloading the server with tests. Sorry folks…
Kim Dot Com is attempting the same with his anonymous email service. I hate to see New Zealand meet France in a cell.
At 6′ 7″ tall I would put my money on Kim Dot Com! lol
Careful what you say here.. you could be banned from entering France! LOL!
The javascript error outlined above affecting 2 browsers when submitting the contact form has been fixed.
Thanks AbdulBasit Makrani
Yes, I can confirm it’s fixed and working smoothly.
Really quick action taken by Francois. Great job and thanks to you too!
I think most here are approaching this from a pure business standpoint when in reality its nothing more than a way for the 55 year old CEO to communicate with his 21 year old future trophy wife. The domain name and the hot girl on the homepage clearly shows this. No different than Pinterest letting you have secret boards so you can hide all the hot chicks in lingerie from your wife. Smart idea Francois and a perfect target market for this domain.
I tried it, not a service I would use again, to many windows to open… best of luck with your project
Too many windows????
There is only one page with a form to send a message.
Francois
Discretion.com- is best use for some sort of porn or secretive sex partners exchange site.
I tested it and yahoo delivered the email as spam to my spam folder.
I signed up to one of Francois’s sites a long time ago and was spammed for over a year, a mistake I would not repeat. Wonder what the price is for this one, harvesting emails perhaps?
If you click “About” it reads;
“We do not ask you any personal information, we don’t save any data except the encrypted messages for 48H maximum”
An email address probably wouldn’t be considered “Data” so please clarify if email addresses are being captured or used in anyway.
Shane makes a good point, people using this kind of site are usually people doing bad things, some worst than others.. What’s to keep terrorists from using this service to send encrypted messages to plot an attack?
The potential of that happening and knowing I had a role in it would be enough for me to shut the site down.
@Bulls
That’s the use everyone think. If it could save some marriages…
@Dan
Yes Dan and we are investigating this issue on Yahoo.
@Raider
– Hello, I still remember on DNF 6 or 7 years ago our conversation about quit smoking, you were very pleasant at that time. Lately I noticed your harsh comments on any domain blogs posts, which let me think life is maybe not treating you as well as you deserve. I am sorry if that’s the case.
– You probably signed at Valuate.com, funny, because what you call spam is nothing else than the very popular domaining newsletter.
– A table of emails is used to can password protect messages. This data is not used for anything else, except maybe further inform the owner about a significant feature or improvement of the service.
– I already responded above regarding the anonymous sending fear and even added a feature to seriously refrain this usage for “bad” things.
“except maybe further inform the owner about a significant feature or improvement of the service.”
Great, another email harvesting site, but in this case it’s the recipients email address being captured without his permission. Nice, And I don’t see anywhere on your site that you disclose this to the sender.
As for the encrypted messages, are you saying you have the ability to unencrypt messages?, if that’s the case, where’s the “Discretion”?
Yeah, when we agreed on smoking I was nice and pleasant, but when I respectively disagree and point out issues on one of your sites, I’m harsh and life isn’t treating me right, Let me just say that life is treating me good enough that I don’t have to do what your doing.
And as I remember it, it was more than just a infrequent newsletter, it was an annoyance.
@Raider
– The email is saved when the user decide to give and verify his email in order to can password protect a message, nothing hidden, there is a menu that link to this page: page:https://www.discretion.com/email/
– Email harvesting would not even make sense, the interest of email for any business is when they are targeted, here we have absolutely no idea who is behind and what are their interest. I am sure there are people around selling database of millions emails for few dollars, so this make no sense.
– Messages are stored encrypted and only decrypted when opened, and immediately deleted at this time.
– The “harsh” was not specific to this post but a general tone I have seen in most your blog comments lately. This is why I asked. Glad you be well.
The only I can say is you will win to have a positive mood, people that do “bad things” are a true minority and for sure don’t do it publicly.
– 17,000+ domain investors receive this newsletter almost daily and each issue has a big unsubscribe invitation at bottom, less than 1% have unsubscribed, so it’s clear most appreciate it. Now I respect you don’t like it, but you cannot say it’s spam.
Unsolicited, meaning the user is not informed prior to entering his or her email address that it will be added to a mailing list.
Unsolicited emails delivered in bulk IS SPAM no matter how you look at it. In order for it NOT to be considered SPAM, you need to DISCLOSE it to the user.
“Messages are stored encrypted and only decrypted when opened, and immediately deleted at this time”
Meaning you the site owner have access to private and personal information, correct?
Great site for extramarital affairs too, something that seems to be the norm in France.
I almost forgot about that thread… It’s unfortunate we have more spamming in our industry than ever before, We have doomainers spamming end users, domainers spamming domainers and now a tool developed by a domainer that allows anyone to spam anyone anonymously, what a concept.
Yeah, I admire people who work hard and are productive in what they do, but it’s what their productive at that matters, this I do NOT admire.