Hotmail: A Spammer's Paradise?
from the keep-on-attacking dept
I was recently talking to someone who had both a Hotmail and a YahooMail account, saying that he couldn't understand how his Hotmail account got so much spam, while his Yahoo account received very little. Apparently, spammers love Hotmail, and continually run dictionary attacks against possible Hotmail addresses to figure out which ones are valid. Microsoft, of course, could block these attacks, but doesn't seem to think it's worth the effort. Their spam filters do block some of these emails, but they still add up towards the user's quota.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I hate hotmail
On a good day, I get between 10 and 20 spam messages of which about 60% are caught as spam and put into my junk mailbox, the rest get through.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
The day after came back and has been spammers paradise ever since. Stopped checking it in 2001 and don t miss it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
as with virus's, everbody hates MS.
;p
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This article misses one IMPORTANT point.
The regular (ie: FREE) user has ONLY 2 Megs of storage space, this was fine until they changed their policy...what USED to happen was that when you went over, you got a warning to delete some mail or they'd do it for you...NOW, they "inactivate" your account and bounce mail (usually legitimate mail I find)..so basically, your option is to check it daily (I get 50-80 on a good day...If I don't clear it in 3-4 days, its full and inactive) and clear it...OR (Here's the part where hotmail benefits from spam) the user can pay a fee (I can't remember, maybe 29 bucks per year) to get 10 megs of storage. Ie: they can check less often, they are sure their account won't be blocked etc..
So as a company, its in hotmail's best interest to let spam bombard you and cause your email account to be shut down often because they figure eventually you'll pay them money to upgrade for more storage space and features.
Personally, I don't use my main hotmail account (I have several) for anything much, but I don't want to cancel it because I've had it so long (since the first year they offered it), most people I know who want to track me down use that one to reach me, as in the past I used to change ISPs quite often (although now I have a cable modem so I mean slowly change that)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hotmail Spam
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why M$-ShitmailLusers need to be shot:
2. They forward those DUMB FUCKING EMAILS with THOUSANDS of addresses attached that FEED spammers.
3. They do a lot of one handed typing.
4. They are slaves to herr fuhrer Bill Gates.
5. They are BLIND RETARDS.
6. They find chatting in porn-bot-filled chatrooms amusing.
7. They have no mind; they're no different than the MTV drones that plague society with their faggoty music.
8. They don't realize that computers don't normally crash all the time; only those infected with the M$-Windoze virus do.
9. They use a SPAM-TRAP.
10. They will never learn. No matter how many times it fucks them over their thick skulls never let the simple thought "Hey, this service sucks, I'm gonna try something else" enter.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]