Microsoft Launches Outlook.com Premium Email Service, Costs $20 Per Year (thurrott.com)

Outlook.com Premium email service, which Microsoft began testing in October, is now available to all. You get the following features with this paid service, via a report: Outlook.com Premium provides a number of useful features: (1) Custom domain support for five users.

(2) Information sharing: Outlook Premium helps you easily share calendars, contacts, and documents (via OneDrive) between those five users.

(3) Ad-free inbox: Like Ad-Free Outlook.com, Outlook Premium offers no "banner ads" for a "distraction-free view of your email, photos, and documents."

Comments

Re:Hmm, marketing dept confusion on the value add?

[Oswald McWeany]

Just because they're not showing ads in your e-mail inbox doesn't necessarily mean they're not data-mining you to use information collected about you from your e-mail inbox.

For example, contents of your e-mail in gmail might be used to target ads against you outside of gmail as your browse the web. I don't use Outlook today, but the ads in Gmail are very minimal, such that, I don't notice them. However, I do notice that ads in my web browser have come from things triggered by e-mails I receive.

I'd pay to get rid of having data from my e-mails saved to target ads to me- actual ads in my e-mail provider though is almost nothing and not worth paying to get rid of. It's not the ads I mind- it's the fact they're data-mining my e-mail in the first place.