Microsoft Adds New Hotmail Fee

To curb spam, users will be charged for accessing their e-mail via Outlook.

Joris Evers, IDG News Service
Monday, September 27, 2004

Microsoft will start charging for a Hotmail feature that allows users of the Web-based e-mail service to access their e-mail using the Outlook e-mail client.

Microsoft is making the move not to increase the number of paying Hotmail users but because the feature is being abused by senders of spam, says Brooke Richardson, lead product manager for MSN at Microsoft.

"Essentially what spammers do is create scripts so they can rapid-fire e-mail from Outlook or Outlook Express and pop off a hundred e-mails from each of those Hotmail accounts in rapid succession," Richardson says. "On certain days we have seen tens of thousands of Hotmail accounts set up and spamming in this matter."

To prevent abuse of the feature, Microsoft will stop making it available to new users of free Hotmail and MSN mail accounts starting this week. Current users can continue to use the feature but will be asked to become Hotmail subscribers over the coming months. By April next year, the feature will no longer be available for free, Richardson says.

The Hotmail and MSN mail feature is known as WebDAV, after the Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) protocol that enables it. It is enabled on about 5 percent, or 9.4 million, of the 187 million active Hotmail accounts, according to Richardson.

For the Greater Good?

While the decision to make the link with Outlook or Outlook Express a paid service won't be welcome news to some users, Microsoft had to take the step "for greater good" of the Hotmail and e-mail community, Richardson says.

Furthermore, rival Web-based e-mail providers such as Yahoo already charge for similar functionality, she says.

Other actions that Microsoft has taken to prevent abuse of Hotmail by senders of spam include a limit on outgoing messages of 100 per day on free accounts and an extra validation requirement when signing up for an account, Richardson says. "We do a lot of stuff in terms of understanding the characteristics of spammers so we can watch for them and shut them down when we see them," she says.

Users who want to use WebDAV to link their Hotmail or MSN mail to an Outlook can subscribe to Hotmail Plus, which also offers 2GB of e-mail space and an account that doesn't expire, for $19.95 per year, or to MSN Premium for $99.95 a year.

D**n...

That's not good. I read it and thought about how to learn my mother in law (who is about 160 year old) how to use the hotmail website.... I'm having a headage already... :(

And it seems so unnecessary; how about a filter that only alows 10 recipients, or allow you only to send one message ever minute? That would be just as easy. So I don't think spam is the real reason M$ want's to change policy.

I really don't understand the why of this... If M$ want to cut the mis-usage of hotmail (hey, who doesn't have multiple account to avoid being spammed on your real account) these rules won't change that.

Would it only be a money thing? Don't they ever have enough?

It's a shame! I'm gonna miss that feature a lot.

Le Cactus

Yes it is all about changing Hotmail from a FREE service into a forced PAYING service... I will swap to Yahoo which does not have this restriction. !!

Hawk

Not yet it doesn't.....

:blink: :blink:


Plenty more free one's and better clients out their anyways...

hello BetaONE

I would be interested to know of some alternative FREE email services that I can access with outlook express...

I think that this is just another way of charging for a "free" service, and just about money...

Thanks for this info, I knew this was happening, I got an email problem the other day about this and outlook express, but didnt know the whole story....

the story is simple, corperate GREED...

Thanks for any suggestions for "other services" that are still free, at least for now...

I am fed UP with M$...

BigHead50

myrealbox.com is the best followed by gmail if your lucky enough to get invited...sorry out of invites..have not gotten a single one in the last few months.. :(

Anyways this was expected...and before long all e-mail will be pay for....

even if you run your own smtp and pop3 server you will have to pay to send to other users on other networks... meaning per e-mail message for example....

its going to happen...watch!!!

Nothing good is free forever!!!

No one will be able to afford to hand out free e-mail accounts as every single e-mail will cost them. I say probally $.0001 or so. At least thats what I have heard in the last few years. Though some companies which to make it higher to "help combat spam"... :( Yea its going to suck.

Hopefully I'm wrong. BTW when I say this I mean probally at least I hope another decade from now.

Nothing new. Yahoo did this once. :)

Try http://www.gawab.com/ it supports FREE POP3.

Cheers,
McoreD