Microsoft finally seems ready to enforce a long-needed policy for its Hotmail Web-based email system: Use your account or forfeit it. The company is giving Hotmail users a 30-day sign-on limit. If a user goes 30 days without accessing his or her account, Microsoft will drop the account and delete all related messages, attachments, and contacts. Microsoft says that it's instituting the policy change to relieve server load and improve performance. (A similar 45-day policy was already in place but was apparently ineffective.) The net result is bound to be a sharp drop in the number of Hotmail accounts; surely many of the countless existing Hotmail user accounts are inactive.

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Reader Comments

My Hotmail account is inactive because I found no way to intentionally cancel it. I finally got tired of all the spam that came through (about 12 a day), and switched over to Yahoo mail, where I can't recall ever getting a single spam.

Stephen Potter- January 23, 2002

This will send a lot of people away from hotmail to yahoo. this 30 days is a bad idea.

festus campbell- January 23, 2002

I never have to worry myself about such shifts in policy. I use both Domino and Outlook Express mail clients to access my Hotmail accounts, dowloading, sorting and storing all the mail fit to keep among the endless stream of spam ( which is the only reason I use Hotmail accounts - convenience comes in a close 2nd in that department ).

Only question which has been nagging at the back of the mind for some time now ... just how does Microsoft plan on ensnaring users such as myself who see or have no use for services such as Passport, not forgetting the shenanigans of AOL and all the rest which have been hustling as well to develop and implement their own versions of single user logins?

After all, I already use one id or password to access my mail, and that is done through my ISP servers; unless, of course, I am mobile and don't have access to my own personal systems. To me the issue is not so much one of multiple IDs and passwords to 'surf and browse' but rather the idea of curtailing my ability to create multiple IDs - and, consequently, multiple passwords, to suit and protect my personal interests when I am online. I am not hardwired to the net to feed some collective corporate and financial maw of bean counters against my considered self-interest.

Unlike the 'lemmings' mentioned in another article at this site, I have been a long time user and supporter of Microsoft over the years, fully aware that while it was easy to hop aboard the crest of an emerging technology revolution back before Windows was even fully a mote much less a vision in Bill Gates and Microsoft's horizons, weathering the high and low points along the way and through the years it has taken to get to where it is today, year 2002, it is not as easy hopping off at this point in time.

So, while the lemmings may be leaping and the penguins are bleating about the Evil Empire, ad nausem, I have ensured that I have all the computing power and services at my disposal, maintained, managed and administered by myself; and as long as my systems are functional and the net is available to be connected to, allowing me access in and outbound to my personal network ... who gives a fig about single login IDs or online storage of personal information when I still retain control over what information I sort into personal and private? :-)

Zar Dov- January 25, 2002

Unfortunately, since Microsoft has chosen not to use free software, they now must pay the price for server licences. If you're wondering whether the cashola for that comes from, wonder no more; they sell their e-mail lists.

Michael Storey- February 03, 2002

hi, I am having a lot of problems trying to access my hotmail account and using msn messenger. I have no idea what is wrong its says my password's wrong but I know for a fact that's wrong. Plzzzz help me!!!

sarah- June 14, 2004

I am having exactly the same problem with hotmail and passwords. How long does it take for the account to become unactive so that I can get my original hotmail account back.

mary Moyna- July 03, 2004

i can't find my hotmail account(mialbox)

Anonymous User- January 28, 2005

i want to get back my hotmail id

Anonymous User- March 16, 2005

Article Rating 5 out of 5

my hotmail has been hacked but my msn still works its strange because whenever i change my password to it, it still works with msn messenger but not with hotmail has any1 got any ideas on what could of happend coz ive got lyk 134 emails and id like to read them n i dunno wat 2 do!!!!

Anonymous User- September 08, 2005

Article Rating 5 out of 5