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
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.
Thay have done it before on purpose with AOL
Yeah come on as if just the kinda thing they would do!
I'm sure Microsoft didn't intentionally block these specific e-mails. The e-mails may come from a google.com address that was blacklisted by the hotmail junk filter, or something like that. Perhaps because Google used the same address before to spam hotmail users.
And it also says nothing about blocking e-mail FROM Gmail accounts. It only seems that in "very limited" situations, the invitation e-mail (probably sent from Google's advertising alias) is blocked.
The hotmail user's account was probably full. Did he try sending a regular e-mail (not the invitation) to that user to see if the same thing happened?
Yahoo Mail even has 100 Megs now... noone should be using Hotmail IMO
This might have happened because the way the title of the Invites are writtien.
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.
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.
I can't say more..
Hotmail may not be discriminating gmail (I believe MSN), but their server is not doing good lately.
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
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
****ty bulk mail settings is to blame.
Mine worked perfectly. Yay for Gmail! No more manual-typing of URLs just to view them!
I mean, who cares if a several million subscribers have their e-mail accounts with them... it's not like they'll care.
While they're at it they might as well just stop making Windows too, right?
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.
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.
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