Simon Moores touched on a huge wave of concern with his Thought for
the Day piece "Seeing Red on Blue Hotmail" about sexually explicit
spam on the Microsoft e-mail service. Within hours of his piece
appearing on site, our inbox was flooded with responses -
overwhelmingly demanding that Microsoft should immediately take
more effective action against the growing tide of spam.Many readers
felt annoyed that Microsoft keeps promoting the purchase of extra
space while the space problem is frequently the result of spam.
Read Simon Moores' viewpoint on spam>>Below is a selection
from the e-mails we received - it is a tiny fraction but accurately
reflects CW360.com readers' views.
I have owned my account for over five years and, even with my Junk
Filter turned on, I still receive about 40 to 50 spamming e-mails a
day.
I'm reluctant to change as I don't see how the problem can be
solved without going to the roots of it, after all, my fairly new
AOL account is already flooded with daily filth.
While it's easy to just click the 'delete' button, I'm sick and
tired of the revolting filth that greets me in the morning.
No business would run unless it was profitable. So who are the
people who actually respond to ridiculous spam e-mails, thus
creating a revenue?
One day I'll give up all my e-mail accounts, go and live on a
little tropical island. A paradise - until the first floating spam
coconut arrives.
Siria Gardi-Montebugnoli
I long ago abandoned the 'exclusion' option as there were just too
many different e-mail addresses for this to be an effective option.
I now have my junk mail option set to 'exclusive' which means that
only e-mails from addresses I have stored in my address book are
delivered into my Inbox.
The disadvantage is that I have to check my junk mail regularly in
case someone I know is mailing from a new e-mail address which
means that I still have to wade through a ridiculous number of
irritating and often offensive messages. Every day, someone
attempts to persuade me that they can alleviate my debt problems,
help me lose weight, show me celebrities having sex and, most
perversely, given my gender, add inches to my penis.
If and when Microsoft can be persuaded to clean up its act on
Hotmail, I will certainly be rejoicing!
Wendy Brown
Spam is a curse. It is bubonic plague for the PC. Spamming is an
overt abuse of our privacy, and should be outlawed by the developed
world.
How can anyone allow random spamming of this type, when we
encourage children to have e-mail and use the Web?
Rob Orr
Hotmail is/was one of the best inventions on the Net, but spamming
has now reached epidemic proportions. For a short-term fix could
Microsoft do the following:
Any e-mail account that sends multiple e-mails to Hotmail with the
names in alphabetical order should be blocked if that address tries
to sends more than one of these multiple mails an hour. Add this to
the terms and conditions maybe?
Microsoft can then send a mail to this address from ALL Hotmail
users in the world saying "No Thanks" that, hopefully, might even
wreck the sender's system.
The e-mails I receive are from many places, for example Yahoo!, so
these providers should also not allow multiple e-mails to Hotmail
from their servers
If an e-mail is that important, send it on its own!
Neil Dowdall
There are so many products that allow filtering of
e-mails to individuals and groups that use the idea of specific
word filtering, I am amazed that Microsoft has not incorporated
that into Hotmail. One proviso to this facility is the ability of
users to create and amend their own settings.
Everyone has a different level of acceptance for e-mail content and
it is not unusual to pass jokes and funnies with suggestive
language that are welcomed by the user. Therefore this facility has
to be an add-on to the existing junk mail settings, rather than a
Microsoft decision.
Like you, I am very restrictive on the use of Hotmail with my
children, but having also set my 70(ish)-year-old parents up to use
it while living in Cyprus, I am finding it awkward explaining this
bombardment of rubbish to their inbox.
Toni Hunter
Rather that imploring Microsoft to improve their product
and service, why not incite users to make full use of the
competition? That would be certainly the most effective way of
getting the overall webmail offering to improve, and avoid
facilitating the emergence of yet another Microsoft
dominance.
Pascal Guignabaudet
I am sure Microsoft could take some sort of a lead, and provide a
'filtering' service that eliminates 'possible' spam - people could
then apply this filter 'at their own risk' of missing genuine
e-mails, but at least the option would be there.
Or perhaps it should be the default option - people could then 'opt
out' of the filtering if they were worried about missing vital
mail.
Ian Buxton
Microsoft should extend its spam filter to include some
form of parental control mechanism. That should be easy to achieve
given its resources.
It would also need to include a graphics filter as well, as HTML
messages now send the text as an image to get around text-based
filters.
Chris Lilley
The spam problem is bad and getting worse every day.
I personally do not, and will never, buy any product or visit any
website that advertises using spam. This, as far as I can see, is
the only way to actually stop spam, by making it economically
unfeasible. Such a boycott would be more effective if there was
some method of advertising such a position, so the spammers could
see that using spam for their marketing campaign will cost them a
significant percentage of their market.
Somehow the marketroids that are using spam have to be convinced of
the message that spam is an unwarranted and unacceptable intrusion
on our lives, and it is not a valid method of promoting their
product or website.
Trying to control spam through litigation is, ultimately, doomed to
failure because of the nature of the Internet. Litigation does not,
and cannot, work on Internet related issues because the Internet is
a global resource and litigation is a national constraint. There
will always be a national jurisdiction prepared to allow spam in
return for a healthy donation to its coffers or
infrastructure.
Marcus Holmes
Simon Moores is absolutely right to be incensed over this
aspect of Hotmail - one reason why I don't use it.
However he is absolutely wrong about it NOT being a security issue!
Of course it is!
If Microsoft took security seriously (despite their protestations
that they do) then they would make it easier for ordinary
individuals to keep their communications and personal details truly
private. Ensuring that the DEFAULT for any personal information is
"Hidden".
They would also provide some better means of ensuring that only
legitimate, traceable users were given e-mail addresses and prevent
the nonsense that goes on with the "Name Generation" engines that
are used to produce Spam addresses.
How difficult would it be for Microsoft, AOL & Yahoo!
alone with all their skills and market presence to set up an
anti-spamming team to monitor e-mails to "dummy" but legitimate
addresses of its own and pursue those people to the utmost. In the
process they could enlist the help of their other fellow ISPs to
instigate similar processes.
Come on Microsoft, AOL & Yahoo! - you may be commercial
competitors, but you are all equal (and, apparently, willing)
victims of the spammers. By apathy you perpetuate that
victimisation and worse convey it onwards to your users. Between
just you three a very serious dent could be put in the spammers'
antics if the right approach were taken.
Let's see something serious done by the
professional
end of the market to significantly reduce, if not destroy, the
spammers' intrusions into our lives.
The lack of seriousness with which Microsoft treats spammers may be
reflected in the fact that although Spam (as in the food) and
spamming are recognised in its Outlook spell checker, "spammers" is
not!!
Bob Lewis.
Simon Moores' problem is obviously the use of his
personal name. He has identified his own problem and can remedy it
by creating a non-name e-mail address.
Joseph Molloy
What a fantastic piece! I have the same love for Hotmail
and Messenger as Simon Moores has - and the same complaint! What a
waste of such a widely used set of tools and chance to breed
goodwill towards Microsoft, by allowing them to be abused and,
therefore, unused.
Dylan Fedy