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Hotmail Blocks Gmail Emails (and Invites)

Posted by Hemos on Mon Jun 21, 2004 08:19 AM
from the intereting-tests dept.
bonhomme_de_neige writes "Emails and invitations sent to Hotmail from Gmail accounts do not bounce, but nor do they arrive in the recipient's Inbox - they vanish mysteriously into the aether. Joel Johnson writes in his Gizmodo weblog that invitations he sent to a Hotmail address bounced (this even received coverage from ZDNet). Search Engine Roundtable writes that several ISPs are blocking Gmail. It's already well-documented that Yahoo moves Gmail invites into the Bulk Mail folder. I've personally confirmed the Hotmail and Yahoo blocking." Please note: I've not been able to verify this one way or another.
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  • Stunning (Score:5, Funny)

    Mega-corporations don't play nice? Really? I'm absolutely flabbergasted!
    • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Bricklets (703061) on Monday June 21 2004, @08:24AM (#9483403)
      Mega-corporations don't play nice? Really? I'm absolutely flabbergasted!

      An email service blocking emails from a competing email service is surprising. Has this ever happened before? Is this even legal?
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Short Circuit (52384) <mikemol@gmail.com> on Monday June 21 2004, @08:31AM (#9483472)
        (http://shortcircuit.us/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 14, @02:01AM)
        I don't know if it's legal, but it's certainly unethical.

        I don't understand why ISPs would block gmail mail anyway. (I understand the invites, though.)
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Bricklets (703061) on Monday June 21 2004, @08:38AM (#9483538)
          I don't understand why ISPs would block gmail mail anyway. (I understand the invites, though.)

          Well, the articles mentions that some email providers are blocking GMail due to privacy concerns. Seems like a bunch of hogwash to me.
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Stunning by danielsfca2 (Score:3) Monday June 21 2004, @08:57AM
          • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 21 2004, @08:59AM (#9483787)
            Because people should never need to switch ISP's, colleges, or jobs. I know when I pick a college, I'm there for the rest of my life.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Stunning by jacem (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:58PM
            • Re:Stunning by wmspringer (Score:1) Tuesday June 22 2004, @02:38PM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Informative)

            by slimak (593319) on Monday June 21 2004, @09:12AM (#9483901)
            unless your ISP is SBC, then you get a Yahoo! account (even though its @sbcglobal.net).
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Stunning by arivanov (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:31AM
            • Re:Stunning by pcmanjon (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:40AM
              • Re:Stunning by topynate (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @11:00AM
            • Re:Stunning by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:15AM
            • Re:Stunning by Patrick Mannion (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:02PM
              • Re:Stunning by Patrick Mannion (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:06PM
              • Re:Stunning by macdaddy (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:07PM
            • Re:Stunning by SnprBoB86 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @07:06PM
              • Re:Stunning by SnprBoB86 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @07:09PM
                • Re:Stunning by feargal (Score:1) Tuesday June 22 2004, @03:46AM
                  • Re:Stunning by SnprBoB86 (Score:1) Tuesday June 22 2004, @06:20PM
                • Re:Stunning by slimak (Score:2) Tuesday June 22 2004, @04:13PM
            • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Insightful)

            by FesterDaFelcher (651853) on Monday June 21 2004, @09:27AM (#9484055)
            Everyone has a real e-mail account available to them if they just pay enough attention to know who's offering it (real ISP, college, job) and learn how to set up a real e-mail client. Five minutes.

            Real ISPs come and go, you are not in college forever, and you dont keep the same job forever. However, you CAN keep one of these "second-rate" email addresses indefinitely. I have had my yahoo account for years, while friends and colleagues change their "real" email accounts year after year, mine has always been the same. I have lost touch with many people because they changed email addresses and never told anyone.

            Thanks for the short-sighted answer.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Informative)

              The motto: huzzah for email forwarding.

              You get all the advantages of a real email address without the changiness.

              [ Parent ]
              • Re:Stunning by stiffneck (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:18AM
              • Re:Stunning by It'sYerMam (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:30AM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
            • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Insightful)

              Actually, the real solution is to take $50 or so and invest in your own domain name and domain based email hosting with a reputable company. By controlling the DOMAIN your email goes to, you have complete control over your email address. If your company goes under, you can move to another one in about 2 days. If your domain provider goes under, you can move your Domain to a new one in about a week. And best of all, you can offer free email accounts to all of your friends and family...free email accounts that you can vouch for, that don't pop up ads everywhere, and that you can control who reads/knows about their existance.

              I started my hosting company as a cooperative just so I could get rid of my favorite email "alias," dasmegabyte@mindless.com, which the company providing the alias had sold to spammers when I told them no, I won't give you $10 a month to forward my fucking email with ads at the bottom. Incidentally, I lost a job in 2001 because the hiring staff sent an email to dasmegabyte@mindless.com and I had already dropped that account -- there was too much spam to sort through.
              [ Parent ]
              • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Informative)

                by metamatic (202216) on Monday June 21 2004, @10:27AM (#9484639)
                (http://www.pobox.com/~meta/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 29 2004, @09:19AM)
                Or pay $12 a year for pobox.com redirection and spam filtering. No ads, and you can send the mail to whatever real e-mail account you like, and change it at a moment's notice (unlike personal domains).
                [ Parent ]
              • Re:Stunning by joeljkp (Score:3) Monday June 21 2004, @11:30AM
              • Re:Stunning by Minstrel Boy (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @04:29PM
              • Re:Stunning by tetranz (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:39AM
              • Re:Stunning by dasmegabyte (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:50AM
              • Re:Stunning by cheekyboy (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @11:09AM
              • Re:Stunning by RobertB-DC (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:31AM
              • Re:Stunning by dasmegabyte (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:11PM
              • Re:Stunning by decepty (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:40PM
              • Re:Stunning by dnoyeb (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:40PM
              • Re:Stunning by decepty (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:46PM
              • Re:Stunning by legojenn (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:53PM
              • Re:Stunning by tetranz (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:13PM
              • Re:Stunning by Blkdeath (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @02:56PM
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              • Re:Stunning by kjd (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @03:41PM
              • Re:Stunning by dasmegabyte (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @03:42PM
              • Re:Stunning by metamatic (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:08PM
              • Re:Stunning by metamatic (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:11PM
              • Re:Stunning by metamatic (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:13PM
              • Re:Stunning by dasmegabyte (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:25PM
              • Re:Stunning by dasmegabyte (Score:2) Tuesday June 22 2004, @12:37AM
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              • Re:Stunning by edhall (Score:2) Tuesday June 22 2004, @06:02AM
              • Re:Stunning by Blkdeath (Score:2) Thursday June 24 2004, @02:40AM
              • Re:Stunning by metamatic (Score:2) Friday June 25 2004, @09:10AM
              • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
            • Re:Stunning by Anonymous Coward (Score:3) Monday June 21 2004, @10:20AM
            • Re:Stunning by Rinisari (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:28AM
            • Re:Stunning by dAzED1 (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:39AM
            • Re:Stunning by maiden_taiwan (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:27AM
            • Re:Stunning by skotte (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:58AM
            • Re:Stunning by ryanwright (Score:3) Monday June 21 2004, @12:12PM
              • Re:Stunning by devnullify (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @05:24PM
              • Re:Stunning by martingunnarsson (Score:2) Tuesday June 22 2004, @01:21AM
              • Re:Stunning by ryanwright (Score:2) Tuesday June 22 2004, @03:56PM
            • Re:Stunning by skotte (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:51PM
              • Re:Stunning by FesterDaFelcher (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:18PM
            • Re:Stunning by trewornan (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:01PM
            • Re:Stunning by masterQba (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:02PM
            • Re:Stunning by Alexis de Torquemada (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:41PM
            • Re:Stunning by eaber81 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:45PM
            • Easy answer to changing ISP's, jobs by danielsfca2 (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @02:13PM
            • Altavista? by Kludge (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @03:05PM
            • Re:Stunning by luna69 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @04:22PM
            • Re:Stunning by oisteink (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @08:41PM
              • Re:Stunning by FesterDaFelcher (Score:1) Tuesday June 22 2004, @10:16AM
            • Re:Stunning by minion (Score:2) Tuesday June 22 2004, @12:22AM
            • 11 replies beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Stunning by adamjaskie (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:29AM
            • Re:Stunning by phurley (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:20AM
          • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Funny)

            by mgrassi99 (514152) on Monday June 21 2004, @09:41AM (#9484188)
            I have both a Yahoo and Hotmail account...someone email me an invite and I'll verify this post ;)

            mgrassi99@yahoo.com
            mikegrassi@hotmail.com

            -M
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Stunning by I_Want_This_ID (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:41AM
            • Re:Stunning by kirun (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:23AM
          • Re:Stunning by Short Circuit (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:42AM
          • In defence of Yahoo! Mail by Zog The Undeniable (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:44AM
          • Re:Stunning by Seven001 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:55AM
          • Re:Stunning by KingPrad (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:59AM
          • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Interesting)

            by mdwh2 (535323) on Monday June 21 2004, @10:01AM (#9484402)
            Everyone has a real e-mail account available to them if they just pay enough attention to know who's offering it (real ISP, college, job) and learn how to set up a real e-mail client. Five minutes.

            But paid-for doesn't always mean better. I'm on NTL, and in the last year the email service has become unuseable (emails sometimes take months to arrive, or sometimes disappear altogether; sometimes connecting to POP or SMTP is very difficult). Paid-for doesn't mean you have more of a position to complain, when your complaints are completely ignored. Whilst gmail blocking seems to be restricted to free email accounts, it is not inconceivable that paid for ISPs may try dirty tactics.

            Switching to a free email account (that I still use a "real email client" for) took five minutes, but switching entirely to a new cable ISP would take far longer.
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Stunning by RichM (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:02AM
          • Re:Stunning by Xhad (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:25AM
          • Re:Stunning by Roofus (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:25AM
          • Re:Stunning by wk633 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:26AM
          • Re:Stunning by Puls4r (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:34AM
          • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Insightful)

            by FlashBac (720033) on Monday June 21 2004, @10:36AM (#9484739)
            OK, fair enough. Yahoo etc are not the greatest.
            BUT I set up my yahoo account 10 years ago, and yes I had a college account, then I left college, had a differant work account, back to college, diff account, Job, diff account, and am now working as a postdoc with a differant account.
            My point is I still have the same yahoo account I had when I was 17. I used it in South America, in Germany, in the Port Authority in NYC, Stansted Airport and so on. So, if someone that i met 7 years ago wants to drop me a mail, and doesnt have my work/uni address, they use yahoo. (And I tell them to use my work address from then on.) But the contact is made. And, therefore they cannot be described as "second-rate e-mail services", because when you are in the back ends of the Andes they are the only thing available, and are pretty first rate in those instances. They are a differant type of account, and are useful.
            And I take offence at hotmail or anyone censoring my mails.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Stunning by h3 (Score:3) Monday June 21 2004, @06:30PM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Stunning by NanoGator (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:43AM
          • Re:Stunning by selloutvixen (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @11:13AM
          • Re:Stunning by decepty (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:32PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Stunning by presarioD (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:03AM
          • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Insightful)

            by ShortSpecialBus (236232) on Monday June 21 2004, @10:23AM (#9484592)
            (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~stefan)
            Well not really! This is like the "No Solicitors" sign you see everywhere nowdays. I guess it's part of their right to block invitations, but blocking "customer service" because of ethnicity or origin that's unethical!

            Yes, but your city council does not put the "No Solicitors" sign on your door for you, and give you no option to remove it if you happen to enjoy solicitors.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Stunning by zurab (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @01:47PM
              • Re:Stunning by ShortSpecialBus (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @02:39PM
            • Actually... by adiposity (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @03:35PM
          • Re:Stunning by rworne (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:26AM
          • Re:Stunning by ip_fired (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:32AM
        • Re:Stunning by baylanger (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:51AM
        • Re:Stunning by NanoGator (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:48AM
        • Re:Stunning (and irrelevant) by gosand (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:26PM
        • Re:Stunning by Le Marteau (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:29PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Stunning by HeLLFiRe1151 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @07:37PM
        • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Funny)

        by MarkPNeyer (729607) on Monday June 21 2004, @09:08AM (#9483871)
        You mean a company offering its services for free is putting restrictions on said services? *Gasp* Can 1984 be far behind? Surely this is the result of the eeeevil George W. Bush and his Patriot Act. Serioulsy, though. These companies are offering a free service. There's nothing unethical or illegal about making said service crappier. Even if you were paying for it, they've still got license to do whatever they want with the service (unless of course the TOS say that the TOS are never going to change...) Isn't this just like consoles all being proprietary, so that not just anyone can make games fro them?
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Stunning by Space Coyote (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @01:36PM
          • Re:Stunning by FrYGuY101 (Score:2) Wednesday June 23 2004, @12:47AM
        • Re:Stunning by benjamindees (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @04:44PM
      • Re:Stunning by SpiritOfGrandeur (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @11:00AM
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      • Re:Stunning by xkenny13 (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:02PM
      • Re:Stunning by LabRat007 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @01:37PM
      • Stunning [not so] by Mulletproof (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @05:57PM
      • my invites got there by wokie78 (Score:1) Tuesday June 22 2004, @10:37AM
      • Re:Stunning by calmansi (Score:1) Tuesday June 22 2004, @06:18PM
      • Re:Stunning by BlameFate (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:12AM
        • Re:Stunning by TXGB324 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @11:38AM
      • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Stunning by gazbo (Score:3) Monday June 21 2004, @08:35AM
      • Re:Stunning by sentientbeing (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @08:45AM
        • Re:Stunning by malfunct (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:53AM
        • Re:Stunning by Dick Faze (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @02:07PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Stunning (Score:4, Informative)

        by 13Echo (209846) on Monday June 21 2004, @08:50AM (#9483667)
        (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 06 2002, @09:42AM)
        I sent an invite to someone two days ago, and he still hasn't gotten it.

        I can vouch that this is certainly questionable.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Informative)

        by bonhomme_de_neige (711691) on Monday June 21 2004, @08:56AM (#9483751)
        (http://www.spunmonkey.org/)
        I use Hotmail, a friend of mine uses gmail. I've not had any problems getting his mails

        Actually - it happened in this order. Test email sent to Hotmail, did not arrive. Story submitted to Slashdot. Email arrived in Hotmail account several hours later (after other emails I sent from my other accounts _after_ the one from gmail - which arrived almost instantly). I've read several reports of Hotmail both bouncing and vanishing Gmail email - I'm sure if you hunt around you can find even more. It may be that they are changing their behaviour as they realise it'd going to do them more harm then good.

        As for the Yahoo one, that is definitely true.

        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Stunning by arkanes (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @09:27AM
        • Re:Stunning by zCyl (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:19AM
        • What about yahoo? by Scott Richter (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:20AM
        • Hotmail generally sucking (Score:4, Informative)

          by phorm (591458) on Monday June 21 2004, @10:42AM (#9484834)
          (http://phorm.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Monday May 19 2003, @12:08PM)
          I've actually had a lot of issues with hotmail in the last... 3-6 months? Email bounce with server errors (accounts aren't full so that's not the problem), or there's a lengthy delay between sending the email and it actually being received.

          So, this may not be so much indicative of a problem with hotmail and gmail as it is hotmail in general. Possibly they're lagged in processing the some bazillion spams that must pass through there, anyone have any stats on how much spam passes through hotmail daily?
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Stunning by chrwei (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @11:57AM
        • Re:Stunning by Badaro (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @12:37PM
        • Re:Stunning by Draknek (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @02:01PM
        • Re:Stunning by ChairmanMeow (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @03:33PM
        • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Stunning by Jim_Maryland (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @08:57AM
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      • Re:Stunning by stun (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:58AM
        • Re:Stunning by lvdrproject (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:10AM
      • Yahoo does not block Gmail invites (Re:Stunning) by otisg (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:32AM
      • Re:Stunning by LighthouseJ (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @12:09PM
      • Re:Stunning by cloudmaster (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @08:47AM
      • Re:Stunning (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Xformer (595973) <avalon73.caerleon@us> on Monday June 21 2004, @08:50AM (#9483664)
        Overgeneralization has made it into /. stories before, or have you not been around that long? If you simply RTFA, you'll see that it's mainly just the invites that have gone missing.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Stunning by gazbo (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:02AM
        • Re:Stunning by FuzzyBad-Mofo (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @09:22AM
          • Re:Stunning by Xformer (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:12AM
        • Re:Stunning by diamondsw (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:07AM
          • Re:Stunning by Xformer (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @10:14AM
        • Re:Stunning by celorfin (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:26AM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Stunning by Otter (Score:2) Monday June 21 2004, @08:43AM
    • Best Quote by GuyinVA (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @08:45AM
    • Re:Stunning by Shaklee39 (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @10:24AM
    • Re:Stunning by Yewbert (Score:1) Monday June 21 2004, @11:29AM
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Unable to verify... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 21 2004, @08:20AM (#9483355)
    Please note: I've not been able to verify this one way or another.

    But I won't let that stop me from posting it! ;)
  • MS & Google (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mfh (56) on Monday June 21 2004, @08:21AM (#9483358)
    (http://put-your-mone...r-mouth-is.com/blog/ | Last Journal: Monday January 29 2007, @02:44PM)
    I would expect this from Microsoft. They can blame the spam filters, to try and save face, but the simple fact is, they are simply taking a page from their own rulebook; they don't want to lose advertising revenue from people switching to Gmail, so they are breaking the law and interfering with email. If Microsoft had successfully bought Google to trash it [theinquirer.net], Gmail would not have existed at all. For those of you just tuning in, Hotmail is owned and operated by Microsoft, after they bought the service [com.com] in 1998. I was a Hotmail member prior to Microsoft being involved and the service has declined significantly since the old days. Although many of the features have improved since then, the bulk of the Hotmail service is becoming increasingly unreliable for email that just "has to get there".

    In other news, we've got lots of Gmail invites for military folks here [gmailforthetroops.com], so if you want Gmail for large files and you are a soldier, or if you want to donate your invites to soldiers, check us out. This is not just for American military, but any democratic military, such as Canada or the UK.