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Cloud Microsoft

Microsoft Launches Outlook.com Premium Email Service, Costs $20 Per Year (thurrott.com) 81

Posted by msmash from the paying-for-emails dept.
Outlook.com Premium email service, which Microsoft began testing in October, is now available to all. You get the following features with this paid service, via a report: Outlook.com Premium provides a number of useful features: (1) Custom domain support for five users.

(2) Information sharing: Outlook Premium helps you easily share calendars, contacts, and documents (via OneDrive) between those five users.

(3) Ad-free inbox: Like Ad-Free Outlook.com, Outlook Premium offers no "banner ads" for a "distraction-free view of your email, photos, and documents."
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Microsoft Launches Outlook.com Premium Email Service, Costs $20 Per Year More

Microsoft Launches Outlook.com Premium Email Service, Costs $20 Per Year

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  • Hmm, marketing dept confusion on the value add? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cant_get_a_good_nick ( 172131 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @12:07PM (#53866055)

    So, when you hear the Ad people talk it's "we add value by presenting opportunities for consumers" and the deep data mining is justified with "we use data to target unique ads that will delight our users"... ... and now we have a payment plan to not have ads. Admitting "yeah, ads suck so much people will pay us not to show them" Not that MS still won't datamine the crap out of you in other contexts though.

    • Re:Hmm, marketing dept confusion on the value add? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @12:16PM (#53866121)

      Just because they're not showing ads in your e-mail inbox doesn't necessarily mean they're not data-mining you to use information collected about you from your e-mail inbox.

      For example, contents of your e-mail in gmail might be used to target ads against you outside of gmail as your browse the web. I don't use Outlook today, but the ads in Gmail are very minimal, such that, I don't notice them. However, I do notice that ads in my web browser have come from things triggered by e-mails I receive.

      I'd pay to get rid of having data from my e-mails saved to target ads to me- actual ads in my e-mail provider though is almost nothing and not worth paying to get rid of. It's not the ads I mind- it's the fact they're data-mining my e-mail in the first place.

      • It's not the ads I mind- it's the fact they're data-mining my e-mail in the first place.

        Agree. If I were going to pay for email, I'd want strong assurances.

        Corporations now have such a hard-on for data-mining, they'll likely do it even if it doesn't actually generate revenue.

      • In that case, I suspect this service is for the rubes, then... or does the ad injection happen in the emails themselves, out of reach of AdBlock/uBlock/etc?

        • I suspect this service is for the rubes

          This is great news, time to migrate from my current beloved, trusted email service yahoo to outlook.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Just because they're not showing ads in your e-mail inbox doesn't necessarily mean they're not data-mining you to use information collected about you from your e-mail inbox.

        I'm scared to think what MS has mined out of my hotmail account. The one I use for (you know) non-professional email conversations.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

        I'd pay to get rid of having data from my e-mails saved to target ads to me- actual ads in my e-mail provider though is almost nothing and not worth paying to get rid of. It's not the ads I mind- it's the fact they're data-mining my e-mail in the first place.

        You "would" pay? Then do so!

        With Office365 for Business their advertised rate is $5/month for one user. You can use your own domain. It's their business product, so there's no data mining. What I and my family have found nice is that, being standard Exchange, it's well supported by most mail apps.

        (I'm a bit confused about the price though... I'm paying $8/month/user for "Exchange Online Plan 2" to get completed unlimited email storage, and I'm paying $4/month/user for "Exchange Online Plan 1" for my parents

      • Hi Oswald, I work on Outlook.com and just wanted to clarify that Microsoft and Outlook.com does not mine your email content to offer up content-based ads unlike other email services you mentioned. You can find that commitment here: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/ [microsoft.com] "No content-based targeting: We will not use your email, chat, files or other personal content to target ads to you."
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Too late (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @12:08PM (#53866063)

    I waited for quite a while for this service to become available.

    I really wanted the multi-domain support without having to buy a business edition O365 plan which would then come with all the business versions of the apps.

    Instead, I found fastmail.com and I haven't looked back. I am super pleased with those guys and I am glad I didn't wait.

    • Been using Rackspace.com.
      $1 per POP3/IMAP and their support is very responsible. I can actually vouch for them as we have 50+ email boxes with them and we've only had 1 hours of down time in 7 years.

      We are however looking at migrating towards Exchange. I really don't want to but the hosted exchange servers are far too expensive for our user count.

    • I've been using domain.yandex.com and still can't find anything better. Even paid mail servers have less features.

  • ... SPAM. Which I seem to get from random outlook.com addresses.

  • "(1) Custom domain support for five users.
    (2) Information sharing: Outlook Premium helps you easily share calendars, contacts, and documents (via OneDrive) between those five users.
    (3) Ad-free inbox: Like Ad-Free Outlook.com, Outlook Premium offers no "banner ads" for a "distraction-free view of your email, photos, and documents."

    1) Lol, custom domain support, whoop-de-fuckin'-do. Just get your own domain and have as many users as you want.

    2) "Information sharing", Oh yeah, I'll bet there'll be "information

  • No scanning? (Score:3)

    by archer, the ( 887288 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @12:52PM (#53866427)
    I'd only be interested if they didn't scan emails for data mining. Scanning for malware would be ok.
  • ... do you get the right to some privacy, at least?
  • Why should I pay Miscreant-o-soft $20 per year to snoop on my email, when Comcast, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and for all I know, the DIA (and other nosy government agencies who don't even have three-letter designations) already does that for the tax money the government extorts out of every paycheck I get?

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      Oh shut up. If you don't want it dont pay for it but don't whine like a fucking bitch about it. FFS

  • US-only (Score:3)

    by CanEHdian ( 1098955 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @02:29PM (#53867249)
    Before getting all excited, from TFA: "The bad news? It’s still offered only to users in the United States."

    Would've been nice to add that little tidbit in the summary.

    • Before getting all excited, from TFA: "The bad news? It’s still offered only to users in the United States."

      Would've been nice to add that little tidbit in the summary.

      If only they could have run it on some sort of cloud platform hosted in multiple countries.....

  • Outlook as bad as Gmail. Besides privacy issues, outlook always blocks my email. I live in China, use VPN, Outlook und Gmail always block my Thunderbird IMAP access. If you have bad luck with Gmail, it can happen that you never can access your account again. Try calling google. Good luck! Get email in Switzerland (Non EU, Non US jurisdiction) with your own domain here: infomaniak.ch or use gandi.net (Email included)

  • I have seen a lot of mobile UIs in my time, but it is the worst. The interface fails to load half the time. The time that it does, it takes multiple taps to get it to do something. Multiselect is an exercise in futility, you'll get about 3 selected, then on the next select, it'll drop the previous ones, meaning you never select more than one reliably.

    And they want to charge for it?

  • Just like when I use it in Thunderbird.

  • Ads are something that detracts from the user experience, and we think you'll pay $20/year to be ad-free (at least on Outlook.com).

  • "... is now available to all." To all? *eye twitch* It's US only! Why would they make this US only?! Why is my non-US money never good enough for them?

  • Be ad-free by getting back to POP3 and a local email client. The ads are there, because web mail is used. I pull 180+ mailboxes into Outlook on my Windows box and have been doing so without ads just fine for a long time. The domain is mine with email services provided along with its hosting. My iPhone is configured to use a few of these so that I have mail on the go, and I could add more. For those that must have the option of web mail as a client, use IMAP instead so that the mail remains on the serve

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