rogerd - 4:01 pm on Feb 20, 2002 (gmt 0)

That's not good news for those who relied on AV e-mail. A lot of these services signed up users by promising them "an e-mail address that will never change - even if you change ISPs".

Brotherhood, I don't offer free e-mail on any sites, but I'd worry about spammers. If you go to something like that, I'd take appropriate precautions. As far as encouraging return visits, signing up e-mail accounts would do that... but I would think you would need a unique and attractive domain to make it interesting to users. There are plenty of major sites like Yahoo and Hotmail that have well-developed e-mail offerings; I'd guess the only reason people would choose a second tier (no offense intended! :) ) e-mail provider is for "image" purposes. (Kind of like people who get credit cards with a college, church, or sports affiliation.)