If you haven't heard, Hotmail is looking at taking the old This is Spam button and bringing it into the 21st Century. Coming to a Hotmail inbox near you will be a new feature called "Sweep" which essentially does just that, sweep's unwanted email away from your inbox, but without the consequence of taking a negative hit to a senders reputation score.
Why are they doing this you ask? Well it is simple, many of us know there is a gray area in email that isn't outright spam, but isn't something you really care about as well like a personal note from your friends. Per Hotmail, Sweep is a virtual broom that lets you super easily "sweep" the mail you don't want out of your inbox into either folders or oblivion, leaving your inbox clean.
The great thing about the new “sweep” feature for managing gray mail is that Hotmail users can get the same result, i.e., not receive the gray mail they don’t want, but it won’t negatively impact the sender’s reputation score.
To be honest I still worry a bit here about this. Will it solve the problem of preventing ok email from being marked as spam if the users don't want it anymore even after signing up for it? Will users be more educated using this feature to know they could just as easily unsubscribe from within the email if they don't want it anymore? Could this new feature cause more confusion? perhaps…
What are your thoughts?
-Dennis
Eloqua
Don't Just Send, Deliver!
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I like this feature. Given that 22% of people will consider email spam even if they had signed up for it originally I think having a less harsh option that doesn't penalize a sender is a good thing. It can be challenging for a less seasoned company/person managing email campaigns to do and know all that is necessary to keep a list clean and avoid deliverability problems. I think this is something all large ISPs should consider.
Hey Dennis,
I like this idea, but it makes me nervous. Knowing the current breakdown of Hotmail/MSN subscribers, I'm not sure how well received the "Sweep" option will be. It has the potential to be confusing and misunderstood in terms of identifying "true spam" versus "unwanted" or "too busy right now". I think it's moving in a sender-positive direction, but it's yet to be seen whether that's a good thing.
-Kelly Lorenz
Hi Dennis,
I am not sure that it won't negatively impact sender reputation. Sure, spam complaints could be less, but how about user engagement. This is getting more and more important in the email deliverability spectrum. What are your views on this?
-Casper Schoute
About 6 months ago I stopped reading/deleting/managing my 15 year old Hotmail account. Too much information – I just scan to see what emails are for me or pertinent, and ignore the rest. I've been wondering about some kind of solution. I figured, this has got to be pretty normal… and wow! This sweep thing is perfect! Ok, so I've still got another 3000 mails to organize/trash, but this is exactly what I needed to get my account back under control. It makes so much sense.
i HATE this new feature.!!! all my old emails and contacts that i wanted, GONE.
emails i havent even opened yet , GONE.
photographs and important documents, yep, gone.
i even lost a job because the people deleted it.
YUCK YUCK YUCK. BEST AVOIDED
After using the "sweep" option I have noticed much more spam. Hotmail is by far the worst e-mail service out there. I have a g-mail account and never get spam. I only use hotmail as a dumping ground when I have to give an e-mail address for a service I want online. If you do business online at all they will share your information. I don't care who it is they are all scum and lie about giving out your info. So if hotmail is going to play into that I will just continue to use them as well.