> I've also seen many people who keep a gmail or other mass market account > as a professional address knowing that they will move between > institutional addresses. As companies come and go faster and people > transition between them more often, keeping a semi-permanent > professional contact point is a sound strategy. Can these people really be confident that "gmail.com" will outlive their professional life? At the very least, they should use their own domain name - even if they use a GMail or Yahoo Mail-type service to host their email. (As an extra benefit - to keep this message on-topic - the email that they send won't be subject to DMARC.) The fact that such services are useful is undeniable. As is the fact that "@yahoo.com" and "@gmail.com" email address look unprofessional. They just do. Ross.