Neowin.net - Hotmail giving cold shoulder to Google mail?

Hotmail giving cold shoulder to Google mail?

Posted by malebolgia on 15 June 2004 - 20:48 · 40 comments & 2905 views

Hotmail doesn't receive e-mails from Google's GMail, at least for a few users. It's being reported by some users that Microsoft's Hotmail blocks e-mail's from GMail. A MSN representative is telling another story saying that there are no known problems with Hotmail's incoming mail. Is Microsoft pulling the same thing with GMail as it did with the MSN Homepage and Opera's web browser?

Receiving a coveted invitation to open a free e-mail account on Google's Gmail is a thrill that's literally lost on Microsoft.

At least it was for Joel Johnson's girlfriend, whose MSN Hotmail account (a rival free e-mail service) bounced invitations to join Gmail twice last Wednesday. That day, Johnson was given the chance to dole out two accounts for Gmail to friends before the high-profile service is widely launched, per Google's policy of limiting membership to friends, and friends of friends, while it works out the kinks. "The e-mails actually never went through, but I was able to...send them to her" via instant messenger, said Johnson, who wrote about the incident on his Web log, Gizmodo.

He added that several people e-mailed him about having had the same trouble inviting Hotmail users to Gmail. One person said that invitations to Orkut, Google's social networking site, were blocked by Hotmail. Google acknowledged some similar occurrences with Hotmail but called them "very limited." MSN representatives said there were no known problems with Hotmail users receiving Gmail or Orkut invitations. "MSN Hotmail treats mail from Gmail accounts in the same manner as all other incoming mail," MSN product manager Brooke Richardson wrote in an e-mail.

News source: C|Net News.com

Additional note; the store only accepts Mastercard, Visa, Solo and Switch. A strange move to ignore the ever popular electron card, a card mainly used by the music listening youth that Apple would be more than wise to tap into. The store also requires a credit card (or one of the above) to register an account for the service.

Hide additional information

About the Author
Full name: Unknown
Forum name: vet

malebolgia
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline

Total votes: 0

Bookmark on del.icio.us

Advertisement

(6 replies) #1 Posted by XanDaMan on 15 Jun 2004 - 20:50: Oooh, shame for hotmail users.

#2 Posted by lardiop on 15 Jun 2004 - 20:55: lmfao @ Hotmail if they're doing that

Yahoo Mail even has 100 Megs now... noone should be using Hotmail IMO

(2 replies) #3 Posted by Tartan on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:04: Same thing happened when i sent an invite to someone on yahoo, they didnt receive it and it didnt bounce back either.

(2 replies) #4 Posted by Yvo on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:04: Hmmm I think this is just a little exageration.

Depending on how the invitation is worded, Microsoft's spam software could just be filtering it out. I mean think about it logically...

Gmail isn't a big known word yet and then they add the word "invitation" to the message subject. Now think how much spam you receive with a word combination of words & a word similiar to invitation. Seriously the spam isn't a human being and filters it out because it's an invitation to download porn or what not. Or an invitation for 10 dvds for 49 cents. aka... junk mail.

Sure you can assume Microsoft for the worst, but let's not start thinking conspiracies with everything Microsoft does.

(1 reply) #5 Posted by bangbang023 on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:10: Give me a break. I wouldn't be surprised if the author is wearing a tin foil hat. I got my GMail invite via hotmail.

#6 Posted by moeburn on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:12: Hotmail employs a spam-blocking filter, one that is always turned on no matter what your settings are, and it will delete messages that it thinks are spam.

This spam filter, not designed by microsoft, is very heuristic, often blocking entire sub-subnets (64.221.*.* for example), and many legit business can often be blocked.

The same issue has occured in the past with PayPal - hotmail and Deviantart - hotmail, although it was later discovered that it was the spam blocking filter that users cannot turn off that was at fault.

(1 reply) #7 Posted by McGazza on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:37: LoL Im not bothered, hotmail are rubbish full stop! Yeh apart from the SPAM filter. I mean 2MBs?? Whats anyone going to do with that?

#8 Posted by altermind on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:44: gmail works with hotmail..... at least for me

#9 Posted by MitchShrader on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:45: @bangbang.. You mean you're NOT wearing your alienspyray proof AFDB? OMG! d00d! yer DOOMED..

#10 Posted by Mav Phoenix on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:47: Kind of low if it's true.

(1 reply) #11 Posted by ThunderRiver on 15 Jun 2004 - 22:11: Hotmail has been abit crazy lately. For example, my gf tried to send me an email like on the 6th, it didn't hit my inbox until the 11th. Apparently, her email was bouncing around within hotmail clusters for 4 straight days..

I can't say more..

Hotmail may not be discriminating gmail (I believe MSN), but their server is not doing good lately.

(1 reply) #12 Posted by CoLdFuSi0n on 15 Jun 2004 - 22:50: Hotmail doesn't block my gmail account or anyone elses :/

(1 reply) #13 Posted by rseiler on 15 Jun 2004 - 23:00: I've tried signing up for CNN's newsletters several times this year, and not a one ever makes it to Hotmail -- including the Junk folder.

I've since signed up a non-Hotmail account, and the CNN newsletters come right in.

Contacting Hotmail support in Bangalore, or wherever they are, has proven useless.

If anyone wants to try one or more newsletters yourself, here's the URL. You only get a confirmation email in reply, which you have to send back to confirm, so you won't be subscribed unless you want, so it's an excellent way to test if it ever makes it into your Hotmail account. They sure don't mine, but with Hotmail running hundreds of millions of accounts worldwide, I doubt they're all on equal footing.
http://www.cnn.com/EMAIL

Last edited by 10046 on 16 Jun 2004 - 00:11

(1 reply) #14 Posted by SirEvan on 15 Jun 2004 - 23:02: if you guys are having trouble with hotmail, blame it on a friend of mine... He works in hotmails noc in mountain view, and he's a total idiot. lol

#15 Posted by Notsnarc on 15 Jun 2004 - 23:25: Hotmail does not bounce gmail email's anymore then gmail bounces hotmail, this is an incident of several people setting up their bulk mail wrong, what this is is hotmail's overly complicated spam filters for normal users

I have personally emailed invites, messages, attachements, etc. to hotmail account from my gmail and vica vesa, and their have been no more problems then yahoo to hotmail or vica vesa

#16 Posted by Khaavren on 16 Jun 2004 - 00:46: I also agree, my invite came to my hotmail account, and i have invited many with hotmail accounts.
****ty bulk mail settings is to blame.

#17 Posted by DsnBehind on 16 Jun 2004 - 02:30: Either their inboxes are full, or it's in their bulk mail folder, or they're too stupid to find it.

Mine worked perfectly. Yay for Gmail! No more manual-typing of URLs just to view them!

#18 Posted by Cyranthus on 16 Jun 2004 - 03:53: its probably hotmail's notorious junk mail blacklist, they have been known for being rather critical about who they put on their blacklist. i remember Deviantart had problems with its members in the past that also had hotmail accounts because of hotmail's little blacklist.

(1 reply) #19 Posted by deadmonkey on 16 Jun 2004 - 07:51: Hotmail should just quit now. Yahoo and GMail are destroying the market now and rightly so

#20 Posted by Sushubh on 16 Jun 2004 - 10:01: i specifically avoided hotmail adn yahoo mail to send invites. but my friends sent me back invites on these 1 ids and they were both recieved though in the bulk/spam folders... good thing i check them once a week

(1 reply) #21 Posted by JaggedFlame on 16 Jun 2004 - 13:25

QUOTE

Receiving a coveted invitation to open a free e-mail account on Google's Gmail is a thrill that's literally lost on Microsoft.

Oh, yeah. What a "thrill" that was.

Anyway, I actually prefer Hotmail, apart from the ads and the storage space. It just seems more effective.

#21.1 Posted by threedaysdwn on 16 Jun 2004 - 16:03

QUOTE (#21.0)

Anyway, I actually prefer Hotmail, apart from the ads and the storage space. It just seems more effective.

I concur.

I'm not even bothered by the ads in Hotmail/MSN messages. I find them far less bothersome than those from Yahoo accounts.

Microsoft also does a very thorough job virus scanning messages and attachments. Their servers are always quick and responsive, and I've noticed no delay sending or receiving except to/from slow providers like Yahoo and AOL.

I also fully expect Microsoft to increase the storage limits for Hotmail and MSN accounts in the future.

#22 Posted by mihir on 17 Jun 2004 - 10:13: hotmail is so crap anyway, 2MB!

[1]

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Scroll to the Top