[SC-Help] Re: hotmail/msn, gmail, et.al.

[Mike Easter]

Aviatrix wrote:
> Doug wrote:

>> complaint to yahoo each time I see a domain registered with a yahoo
>> address. I had read in one of the ng that such usage violates
>> yahoo's TOS.

> Why are you doing this? How do you think it will help any cause?

The idea would be, if it were true, that /if/ yahoo, hotmail/msn, gmail
had a policy against usage of their /free/ accounts 'commercially';  and
/if/ the account in question /were/ free, which isn't automatic just
because something is a yahoo or hotmail;  and /if/ the provider
terminated the account because the use of the free account was for a
commercial purpose ie as a 'business' to register the domain name;  and
/if/ the domainname registration email address were lost;  /then/ the
domainname registration wouldn't be 'any good', which would/could lead
to loss of the domainname registration.  That would be part of a
strategy for an attack on the domainname registration.

In support of that strategy, some have reported that hotmail, which is
sometimes pretty quick on the trigger against complaints when properly
addressed and documented, has terminated a hotmail account which
facilitated the reporter eventually terminating a domainname
registration.

In light of all of my wherefores and whereas/es and if then/s and
therefores above, you can see that there is a tenuous chain between such
a notification and something actually happening, along with some fuzzy
information in the various TOSes and ambiguity of whether an account is
free or not.  I just looked at gmail's, and it wasn't very convincing to
me that the strategy would likely bear fruit on a TOS basis.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin