In response to Google's announcement that their soon-to-be- launched "Gmail" service will offer users 1 gigabyte of email storage, Yahoo! announced an upgrade of their free email service to allow users 100MB of free email storage along with other enhancements.

Microsoft's Hotmail will surely also announce a free upgrade in email storage space.

On surface it might just appear like a simple case of one-upmanship, but it actually represents major forces digging in online and preparing to do battle.

It appears Yahoo! simply wanted to take issue of email storage space off table as a consideration for users as to which email service to choose.

Google enjoyed considerable media and public attention over past few weeks with media marveling at how Google intended to give hundreds of megabytes more space to its users than Yahoo! or Hotmail.

With this move, Yahoo! made storage a "non-issue," but real war has only just begun.

Email ranks as number one most popular online activity according to virtually any survey you care to read.

When people go online, they spend single biggest chunk of their time sending, receiving, and reading email.

Online email providers understand that eyeballs on a page looking at advertising and responding to offers is what makes them money.

By increasing loyalty among email users in order to repeatedly draw them back to same website (often several times a day), email service providers like Yahoo!, Hotmail and Google can keep people looking at revenue generating ads.

by Karen Fegarty http://www.blacklistmonitor.com

We all know that email is probably today's most popular way to advertise. Every day our inboxes are filled with messages from people who want our business--whether we asked for contact or not. Email is today's biggest communication factor; but why shouldn't it be? It's all but free to use, and it's almost instantaneous.

But there is one problem with advertising via email that you may not think of very often: blacklisting. All it takes is one complaint, and your ISP or domain name can be put on someone's black list. If you're on black list, your emails are not getting through--and neither is your advertising message.

So how big of a problem is this? Well, AOL, one of world's biggest Internet service providers, winds up blocking a whopping 80% of messages to its subscribers due to blacklising. Your email could be most legitimate message ever sent, but if one person forgets they signed up or decides to complain, you could be blacklisted. And for your business, resulting slump in sales can be devastating.