As more and more consumers are discovering, such are the pitfalls of relying on free Internet services. Companies can change their usage policies at will, leaving customers with little recourse. MSN product manager Parul Shah said that at least the company warned people before trashing the messages. In mid-June, the company sent out an email that included notification that old messages in the Sent file would be deleted, Shah said. In the face of a tough economy, many other companies providing free services have simply folded, abandoning customers and deleting millions of personal files. "It may take a little time to get used to," she said of the Hotmail changes. "Hopefully it won't be too much of a shock." Shah said the deletion of old sent messages is part of Microsoft's plan to help people manage their email, adding the company figured "if it's 30 days or older, it's probably safe to go ahead and delete that." Shah said the easiest way to ensure that messages are saved is to create special folders and move the messages out of the sent file. In the throes of a tech depression, companies including Microsoft and Yahoo! are aggressively trying to push people to paid services by making it harder than ever to rely on the free ones. Apple is cutting its free email service altogether. Microsoft is hoping changes officially instituted on 16 July will entice people to shell out $19.95 a year for additional services and an additional 8MB of storage on top of the 2MB they get for free. In addition to deleting old sent messages, the company also has cut free access to POP accounts, and is more actively enforcing the 2MB limit. Microsoft claims more than 110 million Hotmail users, but fewer than 300,000 of those have signed up for the extra storage feature.
For everything Internet-related, from the latest legal and policy-related news, to domain name updates, see ZDNet UK's Internet News Section.
Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
