15 July 2001, 22:47 GMT

"It's a bold step," Hotmail COO Lance Nightingale admitted. "But this should finally gain us some recognition as a company that likes to share everything it's got!"

Since popular search engine Google bought out the highly successful web-based newsgroup site DejaNews.com, Google have been keen to promote innovation and openness in their new ventures. For example, they have opened up Deja's vast archive of newsgroup postings from the last five years, and made it fully searchable. Keen to be seen in a similar light, Microsoft recently announced that they will be doing the same with their web-based email site Hotmail.com.

"We see this as a key sign of our new spirit of openness and public honesty," Hotmail COO Lance Nightingale proudly announced in his keynote speech last Thursday. "By opening up all our customers' emails to the entire World, we will be promoting a new spirit of sharing and happiness."

However, privacy advocates are up in arms over the announcement.

"I think MS are really missing the point here," on-line security expert Reggie Snubber exclaimed. "I honestly think that if all of Hotmail's customer-base thought their most private emails were going to be open-sourced like this, then they would have thought twice before signing up with Hotmail in the first place."

But Nightingale counters that it's the privacy lobby that have got it wrong. "They have totally misinterpreted human nature," he explained. "Ask any joe in the street, and they don't give two hoots about things like privacy, freedom and so on. All they care about is when's their next paycheck due, where can they download some new mobile phone ringtones, and when's the new series of Friends being aired."

"Anyway it's like we can't win," he added. "People criticise MS for being too arrogant and closed-off from our customers; we finally open up a key part of our on-line collateral, and we get criticised for that! Besides, all of Hotmail's emails are our intellectual property, meaning we can do whatever we like with them. So bite me!"

* Well not really...

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