Hotmail Top Spam-Stopping Email, Hotmail-Commissioned Study Says [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Hotmail is the top spam-stopping major email service, says a study commissioned by Hotmail.

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According to findings released on Monday by Cascade Insights, Hotmail ranked ahead of Gmail by a hair in spam percentage. Hotmail inboxes used in the study were 48.57% spam, while Gmail inboxes were 48.88% spam. Yahoo Mail inboxes were more than 58% spam.

If those numbers seems high, it's because they don't reflect the average spam percentage of a typical email inbox. But the numbers do reflect what Cascade Insights found to be each service's spam-deflecting capability.

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Cascade conducted its study by opening email accounts with Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo. The research and analysis company used the same username with each. Then, to attract spam messages, it posted the addresses on dating and debt-help sites, as well as public blogs and Facebook pages.

The non-spam email in the case-study inboxes was comprised of newsletters and other announcements that didn't fall into the junk category.

Hotmail has endured a negative reputation in recent years for users having spam-infested inboxes, while Google's Gmail service has gained in user base and reputation. In 2006, the average Hotmail inbox was nearly one-third spam, according to The New York Times.

An identical study by Cascade Insights in 2009 had Gmail as the best anti-spam email service, and Hotmail second.

Predictably, Microsoft (Hotmail's parent company) has not been shy about trumpeting the results of the latest study on its corporate blog.

"Hotmail has come a long way in spam protection and is now among the best in the industry in keeping spam out of your inbox," writes Hotmail's group program manager Dick Craddock. "Our own internal metrics, customer feedback, and even a recent third-party report confirms that no mail service offers better protection than Hotmail."

You can check out the entire Cascade Insights report here.

Do you think this is a credible study? What email to you use? How do you feel about its spam-fighting abilities? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/security/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20120213/tc_mashable/hotmail_top_spamstopping_email_hotmailcommissioned_study_says_video

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