Dude, Where's My Email?

Posted by Alex in Blog & Internet on August 13, 2007 at 12:44 pm


I started noticing this at work a couple of weeks ago, but the problem seems to be a long-standing one: If you’re using Hotmail or MSN email accounts, you may be missing legitimate emails.

Didn’t get that receipt for your online purchase? Wonder why some people never reply to your emails?

That’s because they did send the emails – you just never receive ‘em. These emails weren’t being placed in the junk email or spam box, nor were they bounced back to the senders – they just disappear into the ether, and it’s all Microsoft’s doing:

"They weren’t going to a user’s Junk mail box, nor were they being bounced," Firth says. "They were simply disappearing!"

So Firth began corresponding with Hotmail support people. After five days of back and forth, a Microsoft employee named Bobbi confirmed that emails sent from Firth’s domain, daltonfirth.co.uk, were being "hard filtered" by SmartScreen. And not because they violated some documented technical requirement or contained suspicious phrases that triggered content filters. Rather, they failed to pass conditions buried deep inside SmartScreen that support people declined to share with Firth – out of concern the disclosures would allow spammers to bypass the defenses.

Link (Image: Syris-Studios [Flickr])


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COMMENT

10 comments to "Dude, Where's My Email?"

  1. Miss Cellania
    August 13th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

    You should know better than to use Hotmail.

  2. Alex
    August 13th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    A lot of people still use Hotmail, particularly those who aren't web savvy and don't understand why they're not getting their emails!

  3. L
    August 13th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    I haven't noticed any missing e-mails (well, I guess I wouldn't, would I?) but I have noticed a 12-hour time lag in receiving some Hotmail messages from others. Not acceptable.

  4. donna
    August 13th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    Well, my mail address has been blocked here, so I guess it's a problem here, too.

  5. tangentpantsonfire
    August 13th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

    Hotmail sux now more than ever...

    and did they ever suk.

  6. redphone
    August 13th, 2007 at 11:27 pm

    This has been going on for YEARS. (though for the same reason, is up for debate/confirmation?)

    When gmail first came out, I was quickly gratified to see that my emails weren't disappearing and told a load of people. No doubt others did similar which may have in part contributed to it's initial run-away success.

  7. johnald
    August 14th, 2007 at 12:09 am

    plus you cant redirect mail / filter it to another account with hotmail, which makes it hard to leave.

  8. BelchSpeak
    August 14th, 2007 at 9:10 am

    Yahoo also has an overly agressive spam blocker built in. Some days my emails to yahoo users go through, and on others, they don't. At least I get bouncebacks saying that they were denied, but its very annoying.

  9. KiM
    August 17th, 2007 at 5:44 pm

    About one year ago I suddenly received over 120 emails in ONE day in my email box. Mind you, I don't have a hotmail account ... the interesting thing was that those emails dated from back then as 2001!? I discovered that they ranged from April 2001 up to June 2002. Most of them I had received and read back then, but some emails popped up which I never received back then. Was quite a feast, reading all them again and the new ones, too.

    One of those never read emails was from a friend I had lost contact with. I emailed her in 2006, saying that I just had received her email from 2002. She was like "WTF?" Me too.

  10. martha ortega
    April 30th, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    i have had my yahoo browser,allof a sudden,it'goggle,what happened to my usual sign in wher i got all the news nd could click my email,this is very inconvenient,because i am out of town.
    give me back my yahoo browser
    martha ortega


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