Are Hotmail And Yahoo Blocking Your Gmail Invite?

[wase4711]

Joel Johnson created a buzz by reporting that some Gmail invites and emails aren't getting through to Hotmail users. Several reports also claim the emails aren't getting through Yahoo! Mail filters.

Have you noticed any problems sending Gmail invites? Share your experiences at WebProWorld.

Paul Thurrett of WinnetMag reports Hotmail, which is owned by Microsoft, plans to increase its email storage to compete with the 1 Gigabite of space Google offers through its new Gmail service.

"Hotmail [may] be blocking the Gmail invitations," Johnson, editor of Gizmodo, announced after a Gmail invite he'd attempted to send to a Hotmail account bounced.

Alex Nobert, a reader of Johnson's blog, also reported similar problems sending invites to Hotmail from Orkut, Google's online community. "Orkut responded that they had to work out an arrangement with Hotmail," Nobert said. "About a month later several old invites arrived at Hotmail addresses. I suspect it has to do with an unknown source domain generating too many emails to Hotmail accounts in a short span and being picked up by Hotmail spam filters."

They aren't the only ones reporting problems. WebmasterWorld member Robert Skelton reported his ISP is blocking Gmail emails "due to potential privacy and confidentiallity considerations."

Google has been widely criticized for scanning emails, which draws up privacy concerns although users agree to Gmail's terms and conditions when signing up for the free service. "We collect limited account information and store and maintain your account and email messages on our secure servers," Google admits, but maintains that all collected information will not be shared or sold without user permission.

"The biggest threat to the privacy of the person's reply is the person they send it to - not the provider," Skelton says in this WebmasterWorld thread.

Several reports have also accused Google's leading competitor Yahoo! of sending Gmail invites straight to the spam filter.

"It's a well known issue with Yahoo! mail that Gmail invitations are being delivered straight into that bulk folder," claims one WebHostingTalk member.

"Since a competing free email service can potentially cut into Yahoo's business, they've set up filters to make it more difficult for Gmail invitations to get to their users (or at least, that's the way it appears)," writes Greg at the Talent Show. "As far as Yahoo is concerned, Gmail invites are spam."

Greg reported that Yahoo!, which recently increased its email storage to 100MB to compete with Google, automatically filters any email from a Gmail address that contains the body of a Gmail invite. If you have accounts with Yahoo! and Gmail or know someone who does, you can test this theory yourself by copying and pasting the following into an email body:

[blank] has invited you to open a free Google Gmail account. The invitation will expire in three weeks and can only be used to set up one account.

To accept this invitation and register for your account, visit http://gmail.google.com/gmail/

Once you create your account, [blank] will be notified with your new @gmail.com address so you can stay in touch with Gmail!

If you haven't already heard about Gmail, it's a new search-based webmail service that offers:

- 1,000 megabytes (one gigabyte) of free storage
- Built-in Google search that instantly finds any message you want
- Automatic arrangement of messages and related replies into "conversations"
- Text ads and related pages that are relevant to the content of your messages

Gmail is still in an early stage of development. If you set up an account, you'll be able to keep it even after we make Gmail more widely available and as one of the system's early testers, you will be helping us improve the service through your feedback. We might ask for your comments and suggestions periodically and we appreciate your help in making Gmail even better.

Thanks,

The Gmail Team

To learn more about Gmail before registering, visit: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/benefits.html

(If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them into the address bar of your browser).

Send the email from your Gmail account to any Yahoo! account, then wait and see what happens. (Thanks to the Talent Show for this idea.)

WebProNews tested this theory and both Gmail invites and emails from Gmail accounts containing the body of Gmail invites were automatically filtered to Yahoo! Mail's "bulk mail" folder.

While privacy concerns may be getting Gmail blocked by some ISPs, Johnson personally doesn't believe Hotmail is blocking Gmail invites, although he says, "If Hotmail is blocking Gmail invites, they aren't doing it on a widespread basis."

WebProNews tested these reports by sending Gmail invites to a Hotmail account, and the invites were successfully received - although Gmail emails to some ISPs were caught by spam filters.

Could it be that Hotmail is blocking emails from Google or is it just a problem with spam filters?

[Firefox]

My Invite was in fact in my Bulk (spam - junk) Folder in my Yahoo mailbox. At least it made it to may inbox.

All this got me thinking who is behind "all the Privacy concerns ", "google violates your privacy" Yada Yada Yada is it just more dirty big business it reminds me of our sad exculsive political system that excludes third parties from the debate system unless your a Billionare and you can buy your way into the Presidential race like happened in the 90's. Anyways it sounds like the political mudslinging of the election system. Take a look at some of the TOS's. How much privacy can you expect on the internet anyway? and from a FREE service ?

Code:

General 


Yahoo! collects personal information when you register with Yahoo!, when you use Yahoo! products or services, when you visit Yahoo! pages or the pages of certain Yahoo! partners, and when you enter promotions or sweepstakes. Yahoo! may combine information about you that we have with information we obtain from business partners or other companies. 
When you register we ask for information such as your name, email address, birth date, gender, zip code, occupation, industry, and personal interests. For some financial products and services we may also ask for your address, Social Security number, and information about your assets. Once you register with Yahoo! and sign in to our services, you are not anonymous to us. 
Yahoo! collects information about your transactions with us and with some of our business partners, including information about your use of financial products and services that we offer. 
Yahoo! automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address, Yahoo! cookie information, and the page you request. 
Yahoo! uses information for the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfill your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients.

Plus if you read the TOS on anything now a days you agree to to give up all and anyrights, if you recive any rights or found that there lawyers missed any of your rights that you agree in advance to a change in service and to forefiet those rights as well. If a service pack or an update blows your your computer you agree that it is your fault. You agree that with some OS that you agree to Beta test there software. Can you imagine if you bought a car with a 20 page TOS that you agree not to sue Ford, or Honda, etc. just wait one day it will be slipped in to the 30 pages that you sign when you buy a new car.


My rant is over. The fact is I trust Google more than I trust most of the other Internet intienties. How long have you been bombard with banner ads? you ever notice how some are for your local area where you live ?? We just take it for granted. What about pop up's/unders?

[wase4711]

well, not meaning to offend any one out there, but we can thank this sad state of affairs on the wonderful world that LAWYERS have created. They insist of sueing people for everything from picking their noses, to making the coffee too hot..

if you want to vent a little hate for the legal profession, stop by here and at least get a laugh at their expense...

http://www.pondscumandlawyers.com/

[war59312]

Yeap same here end up in my junk mail folder at yahoo.com