Dude, Where's My Email?

I started noticing this at work a couple of weeks ago, but the problem seems to be a long-standing one: If you're using Hotmail or MSN email accounts, you may be missing legitimate emails.

Didn't get that receipt for your online purchase? Wonder why some people never reply to your emails?

That's because they did send the emails - you just never receive 'em. These emails weren't being placed in the junk email or spam box, nor were they bounced back to the senders - they just disappear into the ether, and it's all Microsoft's doing:

"They weren't going to a user's Junk mail box, nor were they being bounced," Firth says. "They were simply disappearing!"

So Firth began corresponding with Hotmail support people. After five days of back and forth, a Microsoft employee named Bobbi confirmed that emails sent from Firth's domain, daltonfirth.co.uk, were being "hard filtered" by SmartScreen. And not because they violated some documented technical requirement or contained suspicious phrases that triggered content filters. Rather, they failed to pass conditions buried deep inside SmartScreen that support people declined to share with Firth - out of concern the disclosures would allow spammers to bypass the defenses.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/01/hotmail_friendly_fire/ (Image: Syris-Studios [Flickr])