Hotmail: The Spam Magnet!
Note: Throughout this experiment no newsletters were subscribed to and the address was only released to a select group of friends.
I set up a little experiment to reveal the truth behind the Hotmail Spam fiasco. Basiacally, Microsoft has been accused numerous times of deliberately releasing its users emails so that companies could send "friendly advertisements", i.e. Spam. So I decided to check it out.
I made a new email with the address pleasespaamme@hotmail.com, I did not choose to be added to the Hotmail Member Directory, the Internet White Pages or to share my names/email on any registration forms. I did not sign up for any newsletters, and once I activated it I immediately logged out and did not log back in for a week. After I logged in for the first time, I deleted all emails found and logged back out, not logging in for another week, here are my results so far:
After logging back in the second time, I once again deleted all emails and logged out. This time, I went to my My Real Box email address and sent one email to the Hotmail address. After a week I once again logged back in, deleted all emails and logged back out. Afterwards, I told all my friends of the address and asked them to send emails to it as if it was my normal adress. Here are my results for the next two weeks:
- Week Three: 26 Non-legitimate Emails, 1 Legitimate Email
- Week Four: 52 Non-legitamate Emails, 19 Legitimate Emails, 2 Hotmail Staff Emails
By this stage Hotmail was now warning me that I was exceeding my mailbox limit, I ignored the warnings and deleted all emails once again. This time I began sending emails out from the Hotmail address, while my friends continued to send emails. After a week of sending two emails a day, I deleted all emails and then stopped sending all emails, and asked my friends to stop sending emails to the address. Here are my results for the final two weeks:
- Week Five: 123 Non-legitimate Emails, 23 Legitimate Emails, 3 Hotmail Staff Emails
- Week Six: 116 Non-legitimate Emails, 3 Hotmail Staff Emails
And here's all my results grouped together:
- Week One: 7 Non-legitimate Emails, 0 Legitimate Emails
- Week Two: 19 Non-legitimate Emails, 0 Legitimate Emails
- Week Three: 26 Non-legitimate Emails, 1 Legitimate Email
- Week Four: 52 Non-legitamate Emails, 19 Legitimate Emails, 2 Hotmail Staff Emails
- Week Five: 123 Non-legitimate Emails, 23 Legitimate Emails, 3 Hotmail Staff Emails
- Week Six: 116 Non-legitimate Emails, 3 Hotmail Staff Emails
So here we can see that in the first two weeks, where no email was indcoming or outgoing from myself or anyone I know, email, which was entirely Spam, filled the inbox. Once incoming email began, the Spam increased, and increased once again when outgoing email began. Finally, when all incoming and outgoing email ceased Spam reduced slightly, however this could be contributed to a simple variation in the amount of Spam sent by the companies rather than any other factor.
In conclusion, it is evident that even without sending or receiving emails, your email address is released and/or obtained by Spammers. It is also evident that once incoming and outgoing mail begins, more Spammers are able to obtain this address. Since it is the most likely scenario, my guess would be that either Microsoft releases these addresses or Spammers can quite easily trawl cyberspace obtaining addresses and selling them.
The address is still there for anyone who wishes to send an email to it and see if it exists, though it will most likely be cancelled soon as I am not longer checking it.