Hotmail Clamps Down, Threatens Account Freezes To Gain Paying Subscribers
Here Is The Latest Letter Received March 6 From Hotmail Member Services:

"MSN Hotmail account freeze policy

Don't let your account freeze up!

Did you know that if your account goes over the 2MB storage limit, it will automatically be frozen? That means:
You won't be able to send any messages
All e-mails sent to you will bounce back without notification

Your account will stay frozen until you delete enough e-mail to put you under the 2MB limit. Then, you'll need to keep monitoring it to make sure you stay well under the limit.

The better option is to sign up for MSN® Extra Storage. For only $19.95* per year (less than $2 a month) MSN Extra Storage gives you 10MB of storage, five times what you're getting today. It's the easiest way to avoid a frozen account.

PROTECT MY ACCOUNT
SIGN ME UP

With MSN Extra Storage, you'll also be able to:
Avoid account expiration, you won't need to sign in every 30 days to keep your account active
Send and receive larger photo attachments
Keep more messages in your Inbox and other folders

Sign up for MSN Extra Storage today, and for just $1.67 a month, be sure that all e-mail sent to you, gets to you.'

Commentary by Olivier: this is exactly what we would not recommend to do to migrate free users to a paying service.

03/22/02 update: Hotmail users caught in spam trap.