I have been pulling my (thinning) hair out in recent months, dealing with spam filters. I send thousands of newsletters to subscribers as e-mail messages; yet, many of them do not arrive in the recipients' in-boxes. The problem revolves around a handful of e-mail providers. Indeed, most mail servers will accept and deliver this newsletter to subscribers, but a handful do not. The errant mail servers delete these newsletters in the spam filters.
Hotmail has been one of the "problem children" for some time. In fact, the problem has become worse in recent weeks: subscribers using a Hotmail address no longer receive this newsletter in e-mail although most other people do. Now a controlled test by publishing site HubPages.com proves the problem. In fact, Hubpages.com found that the problem is even bigger than anyone suspected.
The test focused on attached files (which are not a factor with this newsletter). Testing shows that Hotmail fails to deliver up to 81% of all attachment e-mails. The testing methodology was described in some detailed and reportedly has now been duplicated and confirmed by others.
If you have a Hotmail address and suspect that you are not receiving all your e-mail messages, you really need to read the article entitled Hotmail Fails To Deliver Up To 81% Of All Attachment Emails at http://hubpages.com/hub/Hotmail_Fails_To_Deliver_Up_To_81_Of_All_Attachment_Emails
Anyone for a Gmail account?
Hotmail is good for one thing - a junk email account. Posting a comment here is an example. There is an email address field, I can be fairly confident that Eastman's won't use it, sell it or give it away, but not so with other blogs, websites, and the like. I never use my real email address on forms like this. Now if I pay for something, like the newsletter I use my real email address.
Posted by: Glenn | July 29, 2007 at 11:33 AM
I signed up for a free Google Gmail account about 9 months ago and have my ISP automatically forward all my incoming email to that address. Since then I may get 1 or 2 spam emails a month downloaded into my email client - Thunderbird. All the other spam (lots and lots) goes into the Gmail spam folder, and in 9 months I have not had a single legitimate email dumped into that folder. HIGHLY recommended!
Posted by: John M | July 29, 2007 at 08:01 PM
I have to dissent from John M.'s comment. I have had Gmail for a few months, to which my e-mail is forwarded from another address. I recently discovered that two legitimate messages had been sent to the Gmail spam folder. I did not attempt to search backwards for any distance, since anything I found would be out of date. The number is small, but even a small number is not pleasant, to put it mildly.
Posted by: George L. Trigg | July 29, 2007 at 10:04 PM
This is not a direct comment on hotmail, which I do not use, but when I clicked on the "hubmail ...." link above, after about 5 seconds this newsletter and the hub site were wiped out (Safari quit). Hmmm.
Posted by: Gloria Ishida | July 30, 2007 at 02:19 AM
I had the same problem that Gloria had when I tried to access that hubmail link. I have used gmail for over a year as my main email address. I have found its discernment of spam to be far superior to my ISP. My MacMail has done a great job of highlighting the spams that got through from my server. Gmail has dumped a few good emails into the spam folder but, since I check my gmail spam folder regularly, I don't consider it to be a big problem. I love the fact that gmail stores all of my emails so I don't have to archive them on my computer. I won't lose them when I change servers.
Posted by: Jackie Reiss | July 30, 2007 at 06:29 AM
I've been using Hotmail for probably 10 years now. Yes, junk gets through the spam filter but if you put items in the spam folder and delete them as spam it works pretty well. Also I very rarely have legit mail dumped into my spam folder. Hotmail is my only e-mail account and, for the price (free), it's just great!
Posted by: Pat Evans | July 30, 2007 at 10:08 AM
I use Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo for various accounts. They each have their own problems. I can't send a Zip file with a couple websites saved in them, for example, to my Gmail account - it gets blocked. I can't send anything with more than 3 attachments to my Yahoo account, because it gets blocked. My Hotmail account stays open because its good for all of the sales emails and such that I get everywhere I register, plus tons of newsletters and stuff. Most importantly, however, I keep it open as my only constant email starting over a decade ago.
I read the article attached and there were some practice issues with how the experiment was run. Before I worried about the messages disappearing for no reason, I'd start with a practice issue. Hotmail does dump a lot of legit messages into my spam, but if I check it every couple of days I can grab them out of there.
Posted by: Concetta | July 30, 2007 at 11:04 AM
I down load my email from Gmail. BUT I send my email directly through my ISP, not Gmail, and as a result have no outgoing problems with Gmail. Still highly recommended!
Posted by: John M | July 30, 2007 at 11:30 AM
I had been shaking in my boots after this report came out, for fear of reprisal at defending hotmail. With Pat's comment, though, I am now brave enough to speak out!
I, too, have been using hotmail for my primary address for ten years or more. I use it for both personal use and for my freelance editing business (which involves *plenty* of attachments). Very seldom has anyone complained to me about me not responding to a lost e-mail or about any other problem with my service. I also find the spam controls to be pretty on-par with other providers.
I have tried other e-mail services over the years (in fact, I just finished my latest round of research a month or so ago) and have not found any (sorry, but ESPECIALLY not gmail!) that match the ease, speed, and reliability of hotmail. My final note is, as some here and on other listservs have alluded but not stated, that I would swallow the report with a few grains of salt and my tongue in my cheek!
Posted by: Stephen, the-freelance-editor.com | July 30, 2007 at 02:12 PM
From a software vendor point of view, and what Dick is also experiencing, we get rejects all the time for emails we send to hotmail users. Not getting "real" emails in the SPAM folder is good, but how about the "real" emails you never see?
It's very frustrating from our end since we are trying to respond to questions from users and can't get an answer back to them!
Kevin Phillips
Northern Hills Software
Posted by: Kevin Phillips | July 30, 2007 at 06:12 PM
Have to say that I have had my Hotmail account for many years with not too many problems. I use it because I never have to change it no matter what Internet provider I use. Hotmail lets you set your own level of filtering, I have my spam filter set to "low" and don't have much of a problem with spam as I am very careful who I give my email address out to and I do use my email a lot! Just wanted to let you know that I am getting the newsletter with no problems at all. Mary
Posted by: Mary B. | July 30, 2007 at 06:27 PM
Dick: Thanks for your efforts! For the first time in several weeks, I received my newsletter at Hotmail. Maybe you scared them? Keep it up, if so.
Posted by: Peg | July 30, 2007 at 07:43 PM
I also have used Hotmail for over 10 years and have never experienced anything remotely resembling the problems outlined in the article. Hotmail has improved the junk mail filtering considerably this year and it makes it much easier to deal with. The only time I'm aware that attachments to e-mails I send out don't get through is when it's been sent to a friend whose corporate firewall prevents it from getting to the recipient. Otherwise, I've had very few issues, and continue to get this newsletter without a problem. Having read the article, it reminds me a lot of the type of postings you see on websites that are devoted to trashing a particular company, such as Paypalsucks.com, ihatestarbucks.com, ihatebankofamerica.tribe.net, etc., etc. I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy of the Hotmail testing that was done.
Posted by: Jeanne | July 31, 2007 at 02:18 PM
I have also have had many hotmail e-mail accounts for over 10 years. I have subcribed to this and many other newsletters and lists and have not had any problem not receiveing any. I also have done successful business with many on-line merchants using my hotmail accounts with great success.
The only complaint I have received is from folks who have too many filters and multiple virus protection and spyware blocker programs on their computer. They don't receive my mail until they take my address off their bad guy list!
Posted by: Barb | August 01, 2007 at 06:20 PM
I also have had my email account for over 10 years and just this week I noticed the problem. I cannot even receive an email from myself from the same account. The weird thing though is I can still get read receipts to the account. I have no filters on the account at all. I only noticed the problem when I sent an email from my work to my home and I received an email back from the hotmail server that the email was in an unconfirmed state whatever that means.
Posted by: Doug | October 27, 2007 at 12:10 AM
Can any one help? I was upgraded, with no warning, from my hotmail acct to the windows live. I cannot access my old acct and retrieve valuable info.Can anyone tell how to do this? Email is scoutusa@live.com. Thx
Posted by: Willard Smith | December 05, 2007 at 04:17 PM