Can't Trust Free Email
from the look-for-safety-elsewhere dept
Maybe I just don't understand the appeal, but I've never used a free email account as my major email address. I've always had a personalized pop account and save messages locally. However, two recent stories are showing that many people rely quite a bit on free email accounts and are now getting angry over changes. First is the saga of all those Mac-faithful who gleefully ate up Apple's offer of a free mac.com email address - which Apple is now charging for. Many Mac fans are extremely angry over what they feel is a bait and switch trick. Hook 'em with the free stuff, and then suddenly start charging. Meanwhile, over at Hotmail, they've started deleting messages that were saved as "sent" that are over a month old. Apparently, with Hotmail, you have to specifically designate each email you want saved, so these tended to be more important emails that people wanted to keep. Microsoft, in their ultimate wisdom, didn't think it was necessary to (what a concept!) warn people before simply deleting their saved messages. Many people are complaining that they need those messages back - if only to archive them elsewhere. Microsoft has responded with a typical "too bad, they're gone". Just some reminders that a free email account probably isn't worth using as your main email account.
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