Email in Spain's oddity

Tsunami · 20 Apr 2011, 04:18 AM

I am an expat living in Spain since nearly 2 years. Even while .es is very popular here (except in separatist regions such as Catalonia, who use .cat mainly) , there is hardly anyone who uses an email address ending in .es. Almost all people I know here use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and now and then someone may use another domain but I hardly ever came across someone using an email address that is really Spanish. Yahoo.es, OK, fair enough, but that's just Yahoo with a Spanish-language interface.

Is there simply no Spanish local email provider (like in Germany there are web.de and gmx.de who are highly popular, Russia has mail.ru, Israel has walla.co.il, ...) ?? It is very odd really that in a big country like Spain, everyone seems to rely on foreign email providers. Is there simply no local alternative or are the local alternatives just not good enough to reach a lot of users?

PS: the people I met who do have an email address using .es or .cat, do so because they have their own domain with .es or .cat extention, not because of a local provider that aims at the Spanish market. Fastmail does have the fastmail.es domain to choose from but I never came across someone using it.

Greensky · 20 Apr 2011, 07:27 PM

I am at least aware of Terra.es. They offer a free Pop3 email service, and the web interface can even be in English. Just check out: www.terra.es (knowing Spanish would help to find out how to open an account).

You'd get an email address @terra.es.

Dutchie007 · 20 Apr 2011, 10:00 PM

If my spanish is not failing me you get a total of 250 MB of space....wow...Impressive!!

I guess now you know why much Spaniards do NOT use local email services!

Dutchie

Tsunami · 22 Apr 2011, 07:31 AM

I am aware of terra.es but i thought that this was tied to a local ISP. I am surprised to hear you don't need to be a customer of them to get an account. They provide webmail as well?

Indeed odd that I came across terra.es addresses only rarely (maybe this is why I wrongly assumed it was a service for customers of a local ISP only)

It still remains odd there is no other local service used widely though. It's a big country and the .es domain is very widely used. But for email 90% of people use either Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo (granted, yahoo.es, but it's nothing but a translated version of yahoo.com)

kijinbear · 23 Apr 2011, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

But for email 90% of people use either Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo (granted, yahoo.es, but it's nothing but a translated version of yahoo.com)

That is probably the same in most parts of the developed world. Yahoo is the only one among the Big 3 email providers that makes extensive use of ccTLDs, like yahoo.co.jp in Japan, yahoo.co.uk in the UK, and yahoo.ca in Canada. Everyone else just uses a dot-com address.

There are a few countries where the Big 3 have relatively smaller market shares. For example, in South Korea, most people use domestic e-mail services. But guess what, all the domestic services are either dot-net or dot-com. The only major e-mail provider in South Korea that uses the nation's ccTLD is Yahoo, which owns yahoo.co.kr.

After all, what do you normally do when you want to visit a company's website without typing the name into Google first? You just enter the company's name in the address, and add ".com" at the end. Only when that doesn't work do you begin to wonder if the address might be different. Dot-com is the world's best recognized TLD, whether you like it or not. No wonder people want dot-com email addresses. E-mail providers are only trying to meet that demand, by using a dot-com domain no matter where they're incorporated.

xmailer · 23 Apr 2011, 05:07 AM

Yep, make sense. Based on my own experience, not many U.S. email users have .us email addresses, nor are there many, if any, large well-known free services which primarily use that TLD AFAIK, but most people in the U.S. seem to use one of the "big three" free services -- Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail. So it may not be surprising if it's the same in Spain and many other counties, and therefore it may not be particularly accurate at all to refer to this "situation" in Spain as an "oddity", or if so, then the U.S. might seem similarly an "oddity."

Tsunami · 23 Apr 2011, 08:22 AM

But it becomes odd when the local extention is widely used for websites, but not for email. Most websites here do use .es (or .cat for the Catalan ones) but for email they suddenly all use foreign services with .com addresses. That is odd when the .es domain is widely used for websites (which is different than .us which as far as I know is also not widely used for web addresses, or at least far less than .com)

In Czech Republic I saw many people using email.cz, post.cz, seznam.cz or similar local email services. Dito when I lived in Germany, lots of gmx.de, web.de and such addresses. While I've never lived in other former East Bloc countries, I know from friends I have in those countries that mail.ru and rambler.ru are more used than foreign services in Russia, and also in Poland and Slowakia a lot of people use local services that often use the local ccTLD.

This makes the Spanish situation a bit odd IMO because, like the countries I mentioned, the local .es domain is very popular for websites. However, for email it isn't. Also, a lot of Spaniards are not fluent in English, so you'd guess this would even increase the demand for a local Spanish email provider with Spanish language interface (although I know some foreign services now translated their interface with Spanish as an optional language)

I tried to check Terra.es but the email part loads very slowly.

kijinbear · 23 Apr 2011, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

But it becomes odd when the local extention is widely used for websites, but not for email. Most websites here do use .es (or .cat for the Catalan ones) but for email they suddenly all use foreign services with .com addresses.

It's the same in Canada (.ca), UK (.uk), and many other countries. A lot of websites use the local ccTLD, but e-mail addresses are all dot-com.

Some possibilities:

(1) Many people erroneously believe that using the local ccTLD will improve their Google pagerank when people from the same locality search for relevant keywords. It's one of the myths that SEO snake-oil merchants have been propagating for years.

(2) Many people and companies also have a dot-com domain that redirects to the ccTLD domain, or vice versa. Those who only have a ccTLD might not have been able to obtain a dot-com domain they wanted. The dot-com address space is much more crowded, you know.

(3) They probably created their Big-3 email address before they launched their website, and they don't want to change their email now. After all, you need an email address to buy a domain. Also, it takes a bit of technical know-how and sometimes even money to use e-mail on your own domain. I know plenty of people who have been using their Hotmail or Yahoo address for more than a decade despite having their own website, and who will probably continue to use free e-mail for the rest of their lives.

(4) Whether or not people use e-mail addresses in their local ccTLD would ultimately depend on the existence of a free, popular, and stable local e-mail provider that uses a local domain. (a) Germany and the Czech Republic might be lucky to have a few such providers. (b) Other countries, such as Korea, have hugely successful local e-mail providers, but they all happen to use international domains. (c) Still other countries, such as Canada, have no free/popular local e-mail provider except ISPs. Spain probably belongs in either (b) or (c).

xmailer · 23 Apr 2011, 09:47 AM

Perhaps rather than "odd", a better term to describe Spain would be to say that it is "unique" -- as is every other country in the world.

Tsunami · 11 Jul 2024, 01:51 AM

It seems GMX also has a Spanish version, including the .ES domain extention: www.gmx.es

I wonder if this is any good? I can recall mixed comments about gmx.com, I would assume gmx.es is the same as gmx.com except for the language and domain. Would the majority of you say this service is trustworthy?

20 Apr 2011, 04:18 AM	#1
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,359	Email in Spain's oddity I am an expat living in Spain since nearly 2 years. Even while .es is very popular here (except in separatist regions such as Catalonia, who use .cat mainly) , there is hardly anyone who uses an email address ending in .es. Almost all people I know here use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and now and then someone may use another domain but I hardly ever came across someone using an email address that is really Spanish. Yahoo.es, OK, fair enough, but that's just Yahoo with a Spanish-language interface. Is there simply no Spanish local email provider (like in Germany there are web.de and gmx.de who are highly popular, Russia has mail.ru, Israel has walla.co.il, ...) ?? It is very odd really that in a big country like Spain, everyone seems to rely on foreign email providers. Is there simply no local alternative or are the local alternatives just not good enough to reach a lot of users? PS: the people I met who do have an email address using .es or .cat, do so because they have their own domain with .es or .cat extention, not because of a local provider that aims at the Spanish market. Fastmail does have the fastmail.es domain to choose from but I never came across someone using it.

23 Apr 2011, 05:07 AM	#6
xmailer Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: USA Posts: 5,485	Yep, make sense. Based on my own experience, not many U.S. email users have .us email addresses, nor are there many, if any, large well-known free services which primarily use that TLD AFAIK, but most people in the U.S. seem to use one of the "big three" free services -- Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail. So it may not be surprising if it's the same in Spain and many other counties, and therefore it may not be particularly accurate at all to refer to this "situation" in Spain as an "oddity", or if so, then the U.S. might seem similarly an "oddity." Last edited by xmailer : 23 Apr 2011 at 08:01 AM.

20 Apr 2011, 07:27 PM	#2
Greensky Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Paris, France Posts: 59	I am at least aware of Terra.es. They offer a free Pop3 email service, and the web interface can even be in English. Just check out: www.terra.es (knowing Spanish would help to find out how to open an account). You'd get an email address @terra.es.

20 Apr 2011, 10:00 PM	#3
Dutchie007 Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 389	If my spanish is not failing me you get a total of 250 MB of space....wow...Impressive!! I guess now you know why much Spaniards do NOT use local email services! Dutchie

22 Apr 2011, 07:31 AM	#4
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,359	I am aware of terra.es but i thought that this was tied to a local ISP. I am surprised to hear you don't need to be a customer of them to get an account. They provide webmail as well? Indeed odd that I came across terra.es addresses only rarely (maybe this is why I wrongly assumed it was a service for customers of a local ISP only) It still remains odd there is no other local service used widely though. It's a big country and the .es domain is very widely used. But for email 90% of people use either Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo (granted, yahoo.es, but it's nothing but a translated version of yahoo.com)

23 Apr 2011, 08:22 AM	#7
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,359	But it becomes odd when the local extention is widely used for websites, but not for email. Most websites here do use .es (or .cat for the Catalan ones) but for email they suddenly all use foreign services with .com addresses. That is odd when the .es domain is widely used for websites (which is different than .us which as far as I know is also not widely used for web addresses, or at least far less than .com) In Czech Republic I saw many people using email.cz, post.cz, seznam.cz or similar local email services. Dito when I lived in Germany, lots of gmx.de, web.de and such addresses. While I've never lived in other former East Bloc countries, I know from friends I have in those countries that mail.ru and rambler.ru are more used than foreign services in Russia, and also in Poland and Slowakia a lot of people use local services that often use the local ccTLD. This makes the Spanish situation a bit odd IMO because, like the countries I mentioned, the local .es domain is very popular for websites. However, for email it isn't. Also, a lot of Spaniards are not fluent in English, so you'd guess this would even increase the demand for a local Spanish email provider with Spanish language interface (although I know some foreign services now translated their interface with Spanish as an optional language) I tried to check Terra.es but the email part loads very slowly.

23 Apr 2011, 09:47 AM	#9
xmailer Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: USA Posts: 5,485	Perhaps rather than "odd", a better term to describe Spain would be to say that it is "unique" -- as is every other country in the world.

11 Jul 2024, 01:51 AM	#10
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,359	It seems GMX also has a Spanish version, including the .ES domain extention: www.gmx.es I wonder if this is any good? I can recall mixed comments about gmx.com, I would assume gmx.es is the same as gmx.com except for the language and domain. Would the majority of you say this service is trustworthy?