Microsoft can reportedly recycle old Outlook email IDs

Who would’ve thought the Yahoo! model of recycling old IDs would catch up? Microsoft, however, seems to be walking down that dangerous street and has come under fire for it. If you have an old Hotmail, Live or Outlook account, beware; Microsoft is recycling old IDs and you could lose yours if you do not sign in often.

According to a PC World article, there indeed is a policy Microsoft follows that could lead to your email ID being recycled. The article does point out that there is no such provision in the Microsoft Services Agreement, though. The Agreement says that users are required to log in to their Microsoft accounts “periodically, at a minimum of every 270 days, to keep the Microsoft branded services portion of the services active.” Else “we may cancel your access” and “your data may be permanently deleted from our servers.”

Beware, your ID could be recycled

In a mail to the publication, Microsoft has confirmed the possibility that an old email account may be recycled. According to the company, when an account becomes inactive, “the email account is automatically queued for deletion from our servers. Then, after a total of 360 days, the email account name is made available again.”

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Yahoo! has recently come under fire for its email ID recycling activities. Despite several attempts from the company to purge the account of all personal communications, it has recently been revealed that new users do end up getting emails meant for older ones.

With Microsoft too going down the recycling route, it is scary to think of the possibilities of what could happen if emails with personal information fall into the wrong hands. It makes one wonder if it isn’t possible to let old email accounts die when unused, never to be resurrected again, a policy Google follows.