CENSORSHIP: 'Outlook' Grim For Affiliates and Newbie Webmasters?

[Bi4life]

HelloEveryone,

I'm just an affiliate and the webmaster of four free-hosted blogs. Not an industry leader, nor expert of any kind. This post is simply meant as a 'Heads Up' to inform you of a potential problem.
If you are like me, money is tight, and you make use of free services whenever possible. In doing so, you could be setting yourself up for trouble:

If you use Outlook, Microsoft Hotmail, Microsoft SkyDrive, Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft Mail Desktop, Windows Live Writer, Bing, or Windows Live Mail this message pertains to you:
Using any of these services to post or upload legal nude photos, adult videos, or pornography of any kind can result in your loss of the ability to use any of them.

(This post is based upon my own, personal, experience. I am not an employee of, nor representative of, Microsoft or any of it's products or services).

According to Windows Code Of Conduct:
*"You will not upload, post, transmit, transfer, distribute or facilitate distribution of any content (including text, images, sound, video, data, information or software) or otherwise use the service in a way that:
depicts nudity of any sort including full or partial human nudity or nudity in non-human forms such as cartoons, fantasy art or manga.
incites, advocates, or expresses pornography, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, hatred, bigotry, racism, or gratuitous violence.
provides or creates links to external sites that violate this Code of Conduct. "*

**"This agreement applies to Microsoft Hotmail, Microsoft SkyDrive, Microsoft account, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Microsoft Mail Desktop, Windows Live Writer (the foregoing are collectively referred to as the "Microsoft branded services"), Bing, MSN, Office.com, and any other software, website, or service that links to this agreement (collectively the "services"). " **{also pertains to Windows Live Mail}.
With Microsoft's latest update for Outlook, you are required to sign in to most, if not all of the aforementioned services using your Microsoft Account information. Violation of any of their terms can result in closure of your account. You then lose the ability to any service which requires a Microsoft Account Log-In.
You will receive no warning. When you attempt to log-in to your Microsoft Account, you will be directed to Contact Support. Upon contacting them, whether you ask why your account was closed, or try to explain, you will find this message in your mailbox:
***"Hello,
We have reviewed your account and determined that it was closed due to a terms of use violation. We are not able to discuss the specific details on your account closure.
To read our Terms of Use, please visit:
windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/microsoft-service-agreement
For information about our Code of Conduct, please visit:
windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/code-of-conduct
Sincerely,
Online Safety Team"***
No explanation will be given, no excuses will be accepted, not even if someone else used your services, not even if your e-mail was hacked. Their only answer will be to direct you back to their Service Agreement and their Code of Conduct.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I found all of this out after someone hacked one of my free Live[dot]com e-mail addresses and sent out spam. This drew Microsoft's attention to my accounts. They saw I had been using Live Mail and Windows Live Writer to post legal porn to my blogs. My accounts were then closed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Quoted from Microsoft's Publicly Posted Code Of Conduct,
windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/code-of-conduct.
**Quoted from Microsoft's publicly posted Service Agreement,
windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/microsoft-service-agreement
***Copy of e-mail I received from Microsoft (Team member's name removed).

Just thought you should know,
David (Bi4life).

[Bi4life]

I now use Mozilla Thunderbird as my desktop email service. You can import ANY email account into Thunderbird.
"Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation."
I use Gmail as my free email account. Gmail's Terms Of Use contain none of the nudity or porn restrictions of Microsoft.
Gmail allows you to create multiple accounts and sync them all together.
"Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google."
I'm sure many of the more experienced members of this panel know of a great many other free or affordable services available.
David (Bi4life).

[Bec]

I've never used Outlook for other reasons, and won't now as I sure wasn't aware of their TOS. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

[attis]

Thanks for the warning. Who really reads all the ToS until you fall into a trap. Years ago I made it a habit to stay clear of MS, so I'm only using MS as OS on my desktop and notebook and nothingh else. Unfortunately there is no true alternative. Linux would be fine, but you need a lot of free time on your hand to get things running the way you want or need. And Apple, well it's another big player and what I hear they're not better when it come to keep their not so little world clean of nudity, not to mention porn.

[abostonboy]

Outlook for the desktop is one of the best applications ever imho. I despise anything to do with Microsoft as it relates to the web, with the exception of Skype.

Gmail is a rock solid email client. Google Docs I love.

As it relates to porn, all of us have to practice proper risk management and avoid anything free if possible. There are cheap hosting plans available for webmasters just starting out.

Lloyd

[jIgG]

Actually that is pretty standard. Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo their terms of service have the same clauses.
Cloud services do not allow porn and will kill your account if they catch it.
Google does it all the time when they nuke porn blogs, Picasa albums etc

Facebook does it too.
I know several people who posted naked photos in private Facebook group and Facebook disabled the pictures and their whole account
They had to start over.

I'm not sure how they can see you posted porn via Windows Live Writer though, unless it stored some info up on Skydrive.

You just can't post porn or nudes to Skydrive, that's all or your Skydrive account gets disabled.
The same is true for Dropbox etc

I had my Skydrive account disabled when I accidentally uploaded photos of my junk up and didn't know it.
I got an email message to the associated email account and clicked the link to have it re-enabled
Some chick responded and re-enabled my account after I removed the photos.
She even told me it was because they don't allow nudes.

[attis]

Are you guys really telling me that you're storing shit on those "clouds" unencrypted? I mean, putting your personal stuff, whether it's porn or not, on someone's server somewhere in the world is just calling for trouble if you don't use your personal encoding software. And if you want to share stuff with other people, send them a key.

[dirtyratstudios]

Sylpheed is a good free desktop client for email.

I agree with Lloyd that free services are best avoided. There's nearly always some kind of catch in the small print.

You can have several domain names and web hosting for $100 a year. It'll include email and as much storage as you need for hosting pages, blogs, photos and videos.

[attis]

You can have several domain names and web hosting for $100 a year. It'll include email and as much storage as you need for hosting pages, blogs, photos and videos.

Where can you find those mysterious hosting plans for $100 a year? I've been looking and asking for them for a long time but they seem to be one of those self-running net stories. With all the programs I've been checking out, the catch was always that according to their ToS you're not allowed to create "traffic that isn't reasonable" (whatever that means). Their "unlimited" offers usually reach a "limit" pretty soon.

The point is that if you want to earn money, it means building up traffic, hosting photos and videos. And as soon as you get some decent traffic, those cheap hosting options suddenly become as expensive as all the other plans.

However, I would be happy to be proven wrong and getting any pointers to a "true" cheap hosting plan that comes without such a catch in their ToS.