If you use Outlook Express or Outlook to access your MSN email accounts, be prepared to get tacked with a fee from Microsoft.  I pay $20 a year for POP access for my Yahoo account, so this this doesn't come as too much of a surprise to me at least...

Microsoft on Monday announced it would start charging users to access their Hotmail accounts from the Outlook or Outlook Express e-mail clients.

The feature, which has been free, lets users of Outlook and Outlook Express retrieve Hotmail messages without opening a browser window. Now, Microsoft will only offer it to new subscribers who pony up the $19.95 annual fee for Hotmail Plus or the $99.95-a-year charge for MSN Premium.

The Redmond, Wash.-based developer said that profit motive wasn't behind the switch, but instead was in reaction to spammers using the Outlook-Hotmail mechanism to quickly create scads of new accounts and start spamming from them.