Microsoft to barricade e-mail sites against spam

Disappointment looms for those selling larger breasts, cheap Viagra and low, low, low-cost mortgages on the internet: Hotmail users are about to be barricaded against the deluge of "spam", or junk electronic mail, that cascades into their electronic mailboxes.

Microsoft said yesterday that the 110 million users of its web-based e-mail system should see the amount of junk e-mail "significantly decreasing" after it signed a deal with Brightmail, which aims to capture such messages before they reach inboxes worldwide.

For Brightmail, the contract is a coup, but for Microsoft it is an admission of defeat. For years Hotmail has claimed that it has its own "spam filters" to capture unwanted e-mail; but users have complained that if anything the deluge has become worse in recent months. Brightmail estimates that spam makes up at least a third, and perhaps a half, of all e-mail.

The companies have been in talks since March – long enough for billions of pieces of junk to be delivered to Hotmail users, who have often been unable to receive e-mails from friends because their inboxes are swamped.