SCN: Hotmail

[Steve]

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========================

Hotmail trashes users' e-mail:  Microsoft defends its aggressive 
efforts to curb spam, even when it means filtering messages sent by 
ordinary Hotmail users.

(Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNet News)---Ben Johnson has been sending e-
mail for months from his Hotmail account. But he just discovered 
that some of his messages were diverted to the trash before arriving 
at their destination. Johnson, 24, is among the millions of customers 
caught in the crossfire of a battle over spam. For at least five 
months, some Hotmail customers' outgoing mail has been blocked.  

In an apparently overzealous attempt to prevent spam, Microsoft's 
Hotmail has been discarding e-mail sent to and from sites hosted by 
controversial Internet service providers--even if the sites 
themselves were not controversial.  

What's more, Hotmail didn't tell people that some outgoing mail was 
being discarded. Instead, it said the error was because of a problem 
connecting to the recipient--a practice that has particularly alarmed 
some customers.  

"If Microsoft, one of the largest technology companies, can say who 
we send e-mail to, that really puts constraints on freedom of speech 
in the U.S." said Johnson, an information technology worker at a 
major Illinois hospital.  

Microsoft defended its actions, saying it's only trying to prevent 
spam.  

"MSN has been very aggressive and proactive in protecting our 
MSN Hotmail users from spam," Sarah Lefko, MSN product 
manager, said in an e-mail, noting that the company will review 
blocked sites on a case-by-case basis if a complaint is filed.  

The quagmire illustrates the challenges of trying to prevent spam 
while preserving free speech. After all, no one wants an in-box 
crammed with unsolicited porn and bogus plans to work from home 
for millions of dollars. E-mail services are struggling to find a fair 
way to prevent that from happening.  

Still, to subscribers such as Johnson, the practice of blocking 
outgoing mail is extreme.  

"It's like killing a fly with a shotgun," he said.  

The controversy stems from Hotmail's membership in the Mail 
Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), an organization formed to crack 
down on spam. MAPS is the keeper of the Realtime Blackhole List 
(RBL), a list of ISPs known to host some major spammers.  

However, many of those ISPs also host sites that don't send spam, 
and those sites often are blocked, too. MAPS hopes the practice will 
convince legitimate sites to abandon hosts that cater to spammers.  

For example, ISP Media3 Technologies is listed on the RBL 
because it hosts half a dozen spammers. However, it also hosts 
sites such as Peacefire.org, which alerted members this week that 
Hotmail users have been unable to reach it for five months.  

After Peacefire protested, mail to the organization was allowed to 
continue earlier this week.  

Other companies besides Hotmail also may be blocking outgoing 
mail, but because they don't always notify customers, it's difficult to 
determine whether it's happening unless someone complains.  

When a company signs onto MAPS, it has several options to control 
spam. It can use a method that compares each incoming message 
with a list of ISPs on the RBL. Or it can choose another, more 
sweeping approach that blocks e-mail, both incoming and outgoing, 
at the network borders. Companies also can tailor their systems to 
block only certain sites or just incoming mail. Hotmail apparently 
chose the most restrictive method.  

Kelly Thompson, MAPS' RBL project manager, said most companies 
choose the least severe technique. Thompson acknowledged that 
blocking outgoing mail might be a little extreme, but given the huge 
load of spam that major services such as Hotmail must deal with, 
"they have the right to be as strict as they want."  

Angry e-mail users The idea behind blocking outgoing mail is to 
ensure that people don't reply to spammers, who often offer 
recipients a fake option of unsubscribing from their list. Instead of 
removing people, spammers use the incoming messages as a 
signal that an e-mail address is an active one where they can send 
more spam.  

Still, Web-based e-mail users are angry.  

Kyle McCowin, a 21-year-old student, first learned of the blocks 
when he was alerted by Peacefire earlier this week. He said he 
could understand blocking incoming mail, but the move to block 
outgoing mail disturbed him.  

"I was caught completely by surprise," he said. "As far as I'm 
concerned, there's no need to block outgoing mail."  

McCowin also wishes Hotmail had made it more clear that it was 
discarding some of the messages he sent. "They just sort of pocket 
the e-mail and don't even tell you about it," he said.  

Microsoft ran into a similar spam-related problem three years ago 
when it tried to block unwanted e-mails by filtering out incoming 
messages from Outlock 98 that contained certain phrases or 
grammar, such as a string of exclamation points or the words "for 
free." As a result, many people found that they never received 
messages from friends who were fond of multiple punctuation 
marks.  

MAPS already has stirred plenty of controversy in its attempt to 
balance free speech rights with spam control. In August, the 
organization was sued by Harris Interactive, which claimed it was 
being unjustly blocked. The suit was later dismissed. ISPs Exactis 
and Media3, which hosts Peacefire, have filed similar suits. Media3 
lost the first round in its court battle Jan. 2, when a federal judge in 
Boston denied the company's request to be taken off the list.  

Copyright 2001 ZD Inc.





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