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Monday, March 25, 2002		Article

Yahoo! POP3 goes bust
Nakul Goyal

Read This:
Important service announcement regarding your POP3 or Mail Forwarding service. Please read on:

Effective April 24, 2002, Yahoo! Mail will no longer provide free POP3 Access or Auto Mail Forwarding to Yahoo! Delivers subscribers. If you would like to continue using Mail Forwarding or POP3 Access, please subscribe to our improved package. Subscribe before April 24 and get the first year of service for just $19.99. That's 33 per cent off the regular service fee of $29.99.

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Mail Team

Got the news? Were you one of their POP3 or forwarding mail users? If yes, you are caught in a problem!! What is happening to this free e-mail concept?

The concept of free e-mail service is to get as many subscribers as possible so as to attract advertisers. The dwindling of advertisement spending in recent months and the fall of many dot.com companies are wake-up calls to existing companies to realise that the free e-mail model is not a profitable business idea after all. Some companies are taking heed.

The pay for service trend will continue. Here is why - free e-mail services have become plagued with spam, viruses, and crime. The amount of spam that goes through free e-mail service is growing at alarming rate because of free and anonymous nature of the service. Spammers hop from one e-mail provider to another and leave servers with, sometimes, unmanageable e-mail overload. Viruses crash e-mail servers due to vulnerability to Web-based links and attachments. Free e-mail services, such as POP mail services, make their living by reselling or reusing your e-mail information. For instance, they might send you one ad message a week. These days most free email providers cannot afford to offer much storage space or features. To get more, you have to upgrade to one of their paid plans. A great alternative is to find an ISP that will give you additional free email accounts with your Internet access account.

IGNOU convocation through teleconferencing mode
Tribune News Service

HIGH technology is fast making inroads into universities too. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) organised its 13th convocation recently at ITI Building, Bulepur, Khanna. The main function was organised at IGNOU headquarters at Maidan Garhi, New Delhi, where Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Minister for Human Resources and Development was the chief guest and delivered convocation address.

The convocation was simultaneously conducted through teleconferencing mode at IGNOU Regional centre ITI Building, Bulepur, Khanna where Prof. K.S. Aulakh, Vice Chancellor, Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, was the guest of honour. Students of Punjab and Chandigarh received their degrees and diplomas in this function.

Prof. Aulakh highlighted the relevance of distance education for the country and appreciated the role that IGNOU has played in the Indian educational scenario. Dr. U.C. Pandey, Regional Director, while highlighting the activities of the regional centre during the last one year, gave information about the priority areas.