Thursday, July 03, 2008

Why I hate hotmail

Many of the people that email me do so from hotmail accounts. Which is fine, except that I cannot reply to them....hotmail (bless their little Seattle coffee based hearts) has decided that very few other email programs will be allowed to reply to their subscribers. I had hoped that perhaps there might be a live person who could jigger the hotmail system to allow me in. No such luck.
This is the FAQ from their web site....

Q. Does Windows Live Hotmail operate an “allow list” that I can get on?

A. No. An allow list is essentially a “free pass” which allows e-mails from certain senders to bypass junk e-mail filters and other precautions. Windows Live Hotmail evaluates all inbound e-mail for malicious content. You can find out more about our filtering processes here.

and when you go to the link, you get this....

Q. How do I avoid having my messages marked as potentially dangerous?

A. To help prevent your messages from being identified, as possibly fraudulent:
• Always use valid, reputable URLs. Make sure it’s clear where the recipient will be taken and whether the destination is a valid website.
• Use the standard URL format. Avoid using IP addresses in the URL. • Where possible, publish your Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records. For more information about publishing your SPF records, visit http://www.microsoft.com/senderid
• Do not link to known phishing sites.

The key was in the second line up....."avoid using IP addresses in the URL". Since I use the email supplied with my domain (stag@southtower.on.ca) this is automatically flagged as a spam site.
Actually, it is flagged as a "this guy is not a hotmail customer so we are not letting him in" rule. Well, so thats it then! Its not a "security" thing, it is a marketing ploy to get people to join hotmail.

Clever.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

That's interesting stuff.

They must operate with exclusivity in Nigeria, Burkina-Faso, Malawi, Hong-Kong, Guyana, Goba-goba, and parts unknown because all of the finest banking establishments there are in nearly constant contact with me to help them rid themselves of the surplus millions and millions of unclaimed dollars from dead plane crash victims, cancer people, dead relatives, and missing moguls that are in danger of being seized by their respective governments. Apparently, only I can help them, which is why God Himself led them all to me.

All of those fine folks are e-mailing me with no trouble at all. Maybe now that Bill has retired, things will get a little easier.

STAG said...

Of course, I would not be able to reply to a Nigerian hotmail account from my domain account. Which come to think of it, would be a good way to prevent the scam from working.

In order to claim these untold millions, I would of course have to sign up to hotmail.

Which could mean that Microsoft is actually "in on it!". Sort of makes sense in a wierd sort of way.

Jennifer said...

It is clearly a conspiracy. Bastards!

Anonymous said...

Hotmail (Microsoft-run) also no longer works on my mac-based browser. Go figure!
Oh well, I dropped my hotmail account and am using my gmail exclusively.