Hotmail Problems Continue

Last week, many Hotmail users were surprised to see they could not access the service and read e-mail. Those users were even more surprised, when after 5 days of denial they were finally allowed back on to see their saved mail and address books had been deleted. Saying the glich affected less than half of one percent of its users (which is still a lot of people for a service such as Hotmail), officials report that the problem occurred during what they call "routine maintenance." Engineers are working feverishly to recover the lost data and restore the remaining users access.

One user told BetaNews:

"My mother had been using MSN Hotmail for quite a while and had become quite comfortable with it, her email address, and as well, the internet. Now as you could imagine, Mothers don't often receive, or send porn through their email accounts, they don't spam, and they try and stay out of trouble. For some reason one day she logged on, and poof, her access to MSN hotmail was denied. I emailed hotmail about it several times and several times they would not even bother to explain their actions, not even to my own mother."

Hotmail has a history of problems that have plagued the popular e-mail service. Last month Bennett Hasselton reported a flaw in the system that would allow a malicious user to download someones messages from their inbox in as little as five minutes.

Visit the Hotmail Web site for more information about the services.