There are two kinds of addresses that are widely used on the Internet. One is a person's e-mail address, and the other is the address of a Web site, which is known as a URL. Following is an explanation of Internet e-mail addresses only. For more on URLs, see URL and Internet domain name.
E-Mail Address Format
The format for addressing a message to an Internet user is USER NAME @ DOMAIN NAME. For example, the address of the author of this database is alan@computerlanguage.com. There are no spaces between any of the words. ALAN is the user name and COMPUTERLANGUAGE.COM is the domain name. The .COM stands for the commercial top level domain category (see Internet domain name). For the actual structure of an Internet address, see IP address.
Get Your Own
You get your e-mail address from your Internet service provider (ISP). You can generally choose any name for the first part of the address as long as it is not already taken (the second part is the ISP's domain name). However, if you change your service, your Internet address changes. To obtain a permanent e-mail address, you can register your own domain name or you can use an e-mail service. See how to register a domain name and Internet e-mail service.
Find Someone Else's
There are Web sites that maintain directories, or white pages, of e-mail addresses. New sites are coming online all the time. You may have to try several sites to find someone, and there's no guarantee. See Web white pages and Web Yellow pages.
E-Mail Address Format
The format for addressing a message to an Internet user is USER NAME @ DOMAIN NAME. For example, the address of the author of this database is alan@computerlanguage.com. There are no spaces between any of the words. ALAN is the user name and COMPUTERLANGUAGE.COM is the domain name. The .COM stands for the commercial top level domain category (see Internet domain name). For the actual structure of an Internet address, see IP address.
Get Your Own
You get your e-mail address from your Internet service provider (ISP). You can generally choose any name for the first part of the address as long as it is not already taken (the second part is the ISP's domain name). However, if you change your service, your Internet address changes. To obtain a permanent e-mail address, you can register your own domain name or you can use an e-mail service. See how to register a domain name and Internet e-mail service.
Find Someone Else's
There are Web sites that maintain directories, or white pages, of e-mail addresses. New sites are coming online all the time. You may have to try several sites to find someone, and there's no guarantee. See Web white pages and Web Yellow pages.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2008 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
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