Summary: Microsoft is looking into serious problems with Hotmail and adding some GNU/Linux-hostile elements to phones

HOTMAIL is up to no good again. A new Hotmail issue that we mentioned the other day is still being "investigated" by Microsoft rather than denied. It involved a breach into people's account details.

Microsoft investigates Hotmail privacy breach

[...]

In its statement, the software giant said, "Microsoft takes customers' privacy seriously, and immediately upon learning of these reports, we started an investigation. We will take appropriate action once we have completed the investigation."

For other important reasons, Hotmail is worth a special mention. It is not only responsible for a lot of the world's SPAM but it was also blocking GNU/Linux users after Microsoft had overhauled it. It was not an isolated incident and other services from Microsoft took the same route [1, 2, 3].

“So once again, Microsoft is 'competing' through exclusion and 'punishment' of competitors.”Microsoft takes this attitude even further with its rather disastrous mobile phones push. Well, it is not exactly shocking as we saw this coming and then cited hints of it (at least twice before this year, namely from CRN and from a longtime Microsoft booster). Yesterday at The Register, Microsoft booster Gavin Clarke confirmed that Microsoft would spread its anti-web standards weapon (Silver Lie) to boost its already-disappointing Windows Phone 7. So once again, Microsoft is 'competing' through exclusion and 'punishment' of competitors. Inoculation with proprietary software is never the solution, unless you are Microsoft. ⬆

"The entire ambition for the Windows team was to create something "cool" that was also visually stimulating to the eye. Their goal was to create a virtual software layer that would unite the hardware and software marketplace on a single standard—a standard, once again, controlled by Microsoft."

--Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft's PR mogul