View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/04/11/18/ms.entourage.hotmail/ Thursday, Nov 18, 2004 12:15pm MS blocks Entourage access for free Hotmail users Microsoft has began requiring Hotmail customers to purchase premium subscriptions in order access email from desktop email clients. Users of Microsoft Entourage, which features direct integration with Hotmail, this morning began receiving alerts noting that they would need to purchase a paid Hotmail subscription in order to access their Hotmail accounts from within Entourage. As noted by MacNN in September, Microsoft said it would disable direct access to Hotmail from desktop clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express, and Entourage in an attempt fight spam. "Microsoft says that spammers have been abusing the Outlook feature and creating false Hotmail accounts using an automated process from which they can send huge batches of unwanted commercial messages."