We’ve all been told there is no such thing as a free lunch; yet it’s hard to resist the siren’s call of “FREE”. That’s one of the reasons why so many people have free email accounts through Hotmail, MSN, and Gmail.
And while you might not be paying out of pocket for these services, there IS a cost. Here’s the price you pay when you use a free email account:
- An Extra Helping Of Spam: And loads of it. Are these free services selling your email account? Do spammers have ways of gleaning your email account? No one seems to know for sure (or at least they’re not talking). But the bottom line is you’ll end up with a lot more ads from Viagra than you bargained for.
- Your Emails Aren’t Guaranteed Delivery: The majority of spam messages come from free email accounts. Even though you aren’t sending them, spam filters look at the server sending the message and, if it’s a known source for spam, will block the email from going through. That means your emails might be getting blocked before they even reach the sender.
- Customer Service? Non-existent! See you DO get what you pay for! If you have a problem, you’re on your own to figure it out.
- Difficulty In Moving, Forwarding, or Downloading: Free email services require that you read your email through their web interface. If you want to move, forward or download your email, contacts or other information, the process is cumbersome and sometimes impossible.
- No Archiving: Email archiving, or storing old emails in a searchable, retrievable format has become very important (even a legal requirement) in some industries like medical and financial. Email is considered a form of communication and if you use it to support customers, order products, or to negotiate any type of deals, you want to keep a record.
So while these free services are okay for chatting casually with your friends, they are NOT recommended for business purposes or for sending anything you consider important.
Here's a question to ask yourself: if your email account was erased tomorrow and all of the messages, contact information, and history went bye-bye, would it be a slight inconvenience or a catastrophe? If so, then you need to bite the bullet and get a "real" email account. And, while you’re at it, you should also get an account that reflects you.
The only reason for keeping a free email account is to provide certain websites with an email address that you don’t care if you get communications from, or that may spam you later on.