SELL MY EMAIL ADDRESS?

May 1, 2006 10:06 AM

Can I auction-off email addresses that I maintain? would that be legal?

I have some good ones, not tied to corporate accounts or anything. Actually, there are two and they're both @hotmail.com.

posted by punkbitch to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Does this clause from MS's term's of service preclude selling an account?

"PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE LIMITATION.

Unless otherwise specified, the Services are for your personal and non-commercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the Services."
posted by inigo2 at 10:10 AM on May 1, 2006

Ebay will kill the auction in no time. You may be able to get away with it by selling to someone you know who badly wants the address and doesn't care about legalities.
posted by special-k at 10:12 AM on May 1, 2006

Or maybe not. I remember two years ago when gmail invites were auctioned off on ebay. You could get around this by say selling a piece of paper and the winner will get a free ***@hotmail.com account. Still not sure if this would be legal.
posted by special-k at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2006

If I remember correctly, Gmail invite auctions were allowed but eBay didn't allow the sale of already created addresses. A lot of people were selling the range of novelty addresses when it first started -- as well as common names.
posted by travis vocino at 10:20 AM on May 1, 2006

Actually I couldn't imagine someone willing to pay for a hotmail address no matter how spectacular the username. I'm not saying hotmail email isn't bad but the whole "hotmail" domain name doesn't necessarily sound impressive. But that is just my opinion.
posted by JJ86 at 10:28 AM on May 1, 2006

I think jj86 nailed it: these 50 people are doing it and getting no bids. Searching completed listings shows 231 auctions, most with 0 bids, a few PS3-related ones around $10-15 or so, one at $50, and the rest of the ones with bids in the $1.00 range.

The guy selling the PS3-related one seems to have dozens of them, all combinations of similar words. Seems unlikely to be worth the trouble for two.
posted by mendel at 11:25 AM on May 1, 2006

I actually had the same question... I have a couple of yahoo addresses that would probably sell... It doesn't look like ebay is killing these auctions. I looked at the ps3 auctions that mendel was talking about. One finished for over $100. I say give it a shot... what's the worst that can happen? Ebay pulls your auction and you lose the listing fees?
posted by D Wiz at 1:00 PM on May 1, 2006