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Comment by stinos | Hacker News Reader

No they're actually saying "by using Hotmail the client agreed with these terms of service that in exceptional circumstances yadayadayada and we did what we were allowed to in this case".

So they shouldn't simply stop doing this (we don't really know how many times they did of course), they should start by getting rid of terms of service allowing such constructs - cause technically, they didn't do anything wrong and their defense seems justified (ianal)

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I suppose it hinges on how intertwined you feel morality is with the law, and I don't mean to be insulting with this observation because it's a legitimate difference of opinion.

But "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" is another perspective some folks take on matters like this.

Which, btw, isn't this what Gmail has done since it's inception? I remember reading it plainly stated in the 1st paragraph of their EULA when it was beginning the long beta run, I appreciated their candor & also opted not* to use such a service. I assumed all free emails hid the same clause in varying depth inside their EULAs. Did we learn nothing from Excite@Home?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excite.com#Excite.40Home

EDIT: *I had hotmail & excite accounts before the mergers and I retained them for years after for online catch-all accounts. My 17yo hotmail locked me out when I refused to give MS my phone number awhile back. meh.

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