Hotmail becomes NOTmail

Yesterday morning, I noticed that emails to Hotmail users were being 'bounced' with the following message:

The following message to xxxxxxxx@hotmail.comwas undeliverable.

The reason for the problem:
5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-'SC-004 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. A block has been placed against your IP address because we have received complaints concerning mail coming from that IP address. If you are not an email/network admin please contact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/network admins, we recommend enrolling in our Junk E-Mail Reporting Program (JMRP), a free program intended to help senders remove unwanted recipients from their e-mail list:

As I am not in the habit of sending 'spam' email which might give rise to complaints, I found this rather offensive as well as inconvenient.

One problem with this high-handed approach is that many Internet service providers including my own (Plusnet) do not allocate each user a fixed IP (internet address) but dynamically allocate a 'free' address when the user logs on.

Consequently, any user could be penalised as a result of unwanted email generated by another.

The problem could potentially be resolved by disconnecting from the broadband service and logging-in again.

In this case, however, it is the Plusnet mail server that was 'blacklisted' rather than an individual user as suggested by the misleading 'delivery status' message above.

According to the Plusnet 'service status' page, Hotmail acknowledged this problem yesterday and have agreed to remove the blacklisting in their own sweet time which is expected to be this afternoon.

Ironically, these sort of anti-spam measures have little effect on the serious bulk-emailers who don't stick around at the same address for long enough to be bothered by any blacklisting.

In my opinion, losing emails that you actually want is a far more serious problem than receiving junk which is a bit of a nuisance but does no actual harm.

If the Post Office started witholding paper mail that they didn't think you should have, they would most likely be prosecuted, so why should it be different for email service providers.

Comments

[Father Brian]

You are correct - it is an offence to tamper with the Royal Mail, punishable by a period of imprisonment. It would be immensely satisifying to see the CEO responsible for Microsoft's Hotmail operations in a federal penitentiary.

However, companies like Microsoft and eBay are now beyond control and treat the world as their personal fiefdom. They have become judge, jury and executioner. Their influence is now beyond that of mere governments, especially given the low calibre of modern politicians.