StealThisEmail.com is a web based e-mail service provided by Interactivist to activists.

When starting this project we decided on a course somewhat different than most providers; you cannot sign up for a StealThisEmail account. These accounts are only available to people known and trusted by us directly, or vouched for by people who fit into the first category.

We decided on this model for providing activist e-mail accounts for a number of reasons, the first being managability. Upon speaking to other tech collectives, such as OAT/TAO and the Red Cursor Collective, the group that runs riseup.net, we were warned that running an open registration e-mail service is extremely draining on resources and time. Running a mass-scale service can go from being a side project of an organization to taking most of the effort of the group just to keep it running.

Doing things on a more community oriented model has allowed us to let StealThisEmail.com to grow at a pace that is controlled by us, so that neither our volunteers, nor our servers get overloaded.

Also, our methods intend to build a specific and intentional model of trust. We want people within the activist community to be able to see StealThisEmail addresses and know that this person is an activist with a real connection to us and our community.

Our goal is to encourage other groups and organizations to replicate our model, and build their own services along similar guidelines.

Legal troubles around the StealThisEmail.com domain.

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