Spam: Are Yahoo, Hotmail and crew part of the problem?
Some popular free Web services are playing both sides of the fence when it comes to protecting consumers from pesky marketers, offering to block junk e-mail while they help advertisers push promotions into customers' in-boxes.
The practice underscores a delicate balancing act for e-mail services, some of which tout features for filtering unwanted messages while they cozy up to advertisers with "opt in" e-mail programs--for a fee.
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