Kurt Shintaku's Blog

While searching for ‘support’ to fix a problem with one of my many Windows Live Spaces, I discovered something interesting:

Did you know that if you have a Windows Live ID, you’re probably receiving SPAM "promotional offers" from Windows Live or MSN?  This includes "promotional" emails, postal advertisements, and telemarketing calls if you have a phone number configured to your account.  I don’t ever recall "authorizing" these "promotional emails" but I could be wrong.  It’s been 12 years since I first got this "MSN/Passport/Hotmail/WindowsLive" account.  (It’s gone through so many permutations!)

It turns out that there is a "Marketing Preferences" web page that you can configure so that these "offers" don’t get sent to you.  All you have to do is:

1. Sign into your Windows Live ID. (http://login.live.com)
2. Go to https://account.live.com/MarketingPreferences.aspx
3. Check the following checkboxes:
1. Do not send promotional offers from Windows Live or MSN to my e-mail address
2. Do not send promotional offers from Windows Live or MSN to my billing address
3. Do not call me with promotional offers from Windows Live or MSN
4. Press "Save" button.

That’s it.  You should be "spam free" from MSN at least after about 10 days.

(Oh, by the way – if you loathe postal junk mail, consider checking out http://www.greendimes.com to subscribe to their services and stop paper-based advertisements and random catalogs from being delivered to your home postal address.  They’ll not only enable you to save paper, but also plant a tree every month, in your name!  How nice!)