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])


I haven't noticed any missing e-mails (well, I guess I wouldn't, would I?) but I have noticed a 12-hour time lag in receiving some Hotmail messages from others. Not acceptable.
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This has been going on for YEARS. (though for the same reason, is up for debate/confirmation?)

When gmail first came out, I was quickly gratified to see that my emails weren't disappearing and told a load of people. No doubt others did similar which may have in part contributed to it's initial run-away success.
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Yahoo also has an overly agressive spam blocker built in. Some days my emails to yahoo users go through, and on others, they don't. At least I get bouncebacks saying that they were denied, but its very annoying.
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About one year ago I suddenly received over 120 emails in ONE day in my email box. Mind you, I don't have a hotmail account ... the interesting thing was that those emails dated from back then as 2001!? I discovered that they ranged from April 2001 up to June 2002. Most of them I had received and read back then, but some emails popped up which I never received back then. Was quite a feast, reading all them again and the new ones, too.

One of those never read emails was from a friend I had lost contact with. I emailed her in 2006, saying that I just had received her email from 2002. She was like "WTF?" Me too.
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i have had my yahoo browser,allof a sudden,it'goggle,what happened to my usual sign in wher i got all the news nd could click my email,this is very inconvenient,because i am out of town.
give me back my yahoo browser
martha ortega
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i open yahoos window it shows i have email; i click to senior peoples window, it shows no email.this has gone on many times. should i change windows or my yahooadress? im 80 and still learing.
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