Bill Gates proposes an end to free email
If the U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free, our mailboxes would surely runneth over with more credit-card offers, sweepstakes entries, and supermarket fliers. That's why we get so much junk e-mail: It's essentially free to send. So Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying "stamps" for e-mail.
posted by wsg on Mar 5, 2004 - 46 comments

Self-destructing e-mail Microsoft boasts of a new feature in Outlook- self-destructing e-mail. Killer feature or bloatware?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy on Oct 20, 2003 - 47 comments

Perhaps you've seen the new MSN commercials that use M$'s "spam-blocking" technology to support their ISP service. Maybe you've read fluff pieces like these, where AOL and Microsoft execs are allowed to wax poetic about their deep anti-spam convictions:

"'I get spam too, and I am as fed up with it as all of our members are,' AOL chief executive Jonathan F. Miller said yesterday." "'To help keep intruders at bay,' Microsoft said, "we must all do our part.'"

So what's this all about? "'AOL and Microsoft argue there is a place for legitimate unsolicited e-mail in the marketplace,' said Marc Berejka, Microsoft's senior director of public policy."
posted by Pinwheel on May 9, 2003 - 19 comments

While MS-bashing is often too easy, this statement about recent security holes seemed especially astounding: "Outlook Express ships with every Windows system, or rather as part of IE, so it's on every system. But unless it is configured to receive mail, you are not at risk," said Scott Culp, manager for Microsoft security response. Interesting. Unless it is configured to receive mail, like, you know, an email program.
posted by judith on Oct 11, 2002 - 30 comments

MSN blocks its subscribers from sending mail with non-Outlook mail clients, as of last week. Like AOL, MSN hasn't allowed its subscribers to check their MSN mail with non-MS mail clients since the beginning. Last April, they banned access to non-MSN SMTP servers (to block spam relaying), but you could still send mail to other ISPs through MSN's SMTP server using your mail client of choice with a simple fix. Now, you can only do so if you switch to Outlook or Outlook Express (quietly announced on their site and via e-mail). All others (Eudora, Pegasus, Agent, Yahoo Mail, Netscape Messenger) are left cold. (more inside...)
posted by waxpancake on Jul 31, 2001 - 30 comments

Do you use Hotmail for email? If so, it looks like Microsoft owns all your messages and can reprint or repurpose them however they like. I'd assume the ToS could be extended to cover any content on a passport-using website as well. Scary stuff, considering all the Hailstorm services on the way...
posted by mathowie on Apr 3, 2001 - 12 comments

Yet another outlook vulnerability. This one's significantly nastier than the previous ones, because it can attack and run programs on your computer as you download the email from your server
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posted by cCranium on Jul 19, 2000 - 12 comments