I just sent an email to somebody with a Hotmail account, and this being my first email to this person and me being the harmless jerk that I am, I opened with this line. "Hotmail? You should let me introduce you to Gmail. :-)"
The email bounced back with this notification:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
xxxxxxxx@hotmail.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 12): 550 SC-001 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. Reasons for rejection may be related to content with spam-like characteristics or IP/domain reputation problems. If you are not an email/network admin please contact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/network admins, please visit http://postmaster.live.com for email delivery information and support
It was a pretty bland message to a health care professional and totally rated G, so what were my "spam-like characteristics"? I re-sent the email, but this time I removed the opening dig at Hotmail in which I suggested Gmail. This time, the email went through without a problem.
Does Hotmail reject emails that include the word "gmail"? Doesn't that violate some anti-competition law?