Hotmail has blocked all K-State e-mail at least four times in the past month. K-Staters who are forwarding their e-mail to Hotmail accounts can be experiencing delivery delays up to 72 hours at a time.  This typically happens when 1) K-Staters set their e-mail to forward to a Hotmail account, and 2) mark some of that e-mail as “spam” when viewing it in Hotmail.  Then 3) Hotmail starts thinking K-State is sending spam, and 4) starts blocking all e-mail from everyone at K-State.  A new webpage provides an overview of the problem and what K-Staters can do to help.

This problem also impacts everyone who’s trying to send e-mail to a Hotmail address, plus everyone who sends e-mail to any K-State address that forwards to a Hotmail address — including addresses on K-State mailing lists.

The reality is that K-State’s e-mail system is doing just what its users have asked — forwarding their e-mail.  The problem is that Hotmail’s system needs to identify the original source of the spam instead of tagging K-State.  Hotmail doesn’t define the exact number of spam tags required, but when “enough customers” erroneously indicate they’re getting spam from K-State, Hotmail starts blocking everything from K-State.  The result is that all e-mail between K-State and Hotmail can be disrupted for a considerable time by a small number of people.

What you can do

1. Use your K-State mailbox instead of forwarding e-mail.
(Sign in to eid.k-state.edu to set/change your e-mail forwarding options.)  In the coming months, K-State is moving to Zimbra, a new e-mail system, that will provide new features, improved performance, and more effective filtering of spam e-mail.

K-State has aggressive spam-filtering at the campus border, which helps reduces spam to all users of K-State e-mail, both on-campus and off. For more about spam handling, see Spam-filtering at K-State.

2. In your Hotmail account, do NOT mark any forwarded K-State e-mail as spam.
On the Forwarding e-mail to Hotmail addresses webpage, see the “What can I do to help? section and use those alternative steps to handle spam.

3. Consider whether another free e-mail provider can better meet your needs.
For example, Gmail and Yahoo e-mail systems seem to have fewer problems with forwarded K-State e-mail.