Outlook Access to Hotmail: Subscribers Only

In an effort to curb the use of Hotmail to send spam, Microsoft will no longer support a Web authoring protocol in the free version of Hotmail. This means that only paying subscribers will be able to access their Hotmail accounts via Outlook or Outlook Express. The move not only plugs a hole exploited by spammers since at least Mar. 2003 but it could also bolster the appeal of Hotmail Plus—an important consideration, given that competitive Web-based mail services have turned extra storage (the main offering in Hotmail Plus) into a free commodity.

Reducing Outgoing Spam

Web-based e-mail is tempting for spammers because it allows them to sign up for an unlimited number of anonymous accounts. To make this more difficult, in late 2002 Microsoft began requiring new users to enter a sequence of blurred letters displayed as an image, which the automated programs used by spammers cannot read. (For an illustration, see “Human Interactive Proof” on page 31 of the June 2003 Update.)

However, since the late 1990s, Hotmail has supported Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV), an extension to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that allows viewing and editing of files on Web servers. Microsoft did this so that Outlook and Outlook Express users could access their Hotmail accounts directly from their e-mail program, without using a Web browser.