Google Apps for anyone, at my domain?

December 28, 2006 2:15 PM

Google Apps for Domain-style service for non-organisations?

I own a domain and want to offer Google Apps style services (mail/IM/calendar/hosting etc.) to people using that domain. Google Apps would be perfect except that it's restricted to "organisations" in one "location". (You need to answer at least those two questions when you sign up.)

I would rather let people sign up for these services at my domain on their own, without restricting where they're from, and preferably without me having to manually create accounts.

Can Google Apps do that? (I'm guessing not from the signup page.) Are there other services that offer similar things at a domain I own?

I'm not necessarily looking to make any money out of it.

posted by Mwongozi to computers & internet (3 comments total)

if you created a subdomain for every organisation then all you'd be liable for is pointing the SMTP/CNAME/A records to the google servers and providing them instructions on how to create the google app domain themselves.

That's what I do.
posted by gadha at 3:17 PM on December 28, 2006

I've worked with Google in setting-up accounts and services for my organization. I would be very surprised if they're trying to restrict this service in any way and I would recommend contacting them directly with your questions regarding "legitimacy".

As for creating accounts, Google provides API's to interface with their domain-based services. Using those API's you could create a customized site that would allow users to sign-up and then provision the accounts in the Google service.

Take a look through the Google Group for more information.
posted by purephase at 5:11 PM on December 28, 2006

i had no problem getting into the google apps beta, and i don't think i claimed to be any sort of organization beyond myself. i provide email hosting for a few friends informally, and i know other people in similar circumstances who also got on board google for domains.

as far as i know, however, there's no way to allow people to set up their own accounts.
posted by sonofslim at 8:07 AM on December 29, 2006