So you're still on Hotmail, are you? Here's an interesting test to perform: from your Hotmail account, send yourself a message to your own Hotmail email addr. I bet it'll automatically be categorized as spam by Hotmail. Think about that: even the Live.com team recognizes that most mail from @hotmail.com tends to be spam, not legit mail. Still want that account?

Okay, okay, that's probably not fair as a test. I admit it. Still, it's interesting!

Now, it wasn't that long ago that the Live.com team rolled out the much improved user interface and user experience of Live.com, including Hotmail, but along the way they did move a lot of settings around. As with AOL accounts, the Live.com team doesn't really want you to disable the marketing messages anyway, because that's a revenue stream for them.

So it was just luck that I bumped into the setting last time I was poking around with my own Hotmail account, and here's how you can find it too.

When you're logged in to your account, look on the top right corner. You'll see this:

Choose "View your account", as I have done here. Now you'll see a ton of options, really a rather bewildering set of options. Buried in it is "Marketing preferences":

Click on that and, surprise, there are all sorts of things you need to actively opt out of (yup, by default, they're all selected for your account):

Read about each, think about it, and if they aren't what you want to receive uncheck those particular boxes, then click "Save".

Done! Now, about that Hotmail account...