Hotmail users can now get a better look at their personal account settings--but some of the service's estimated 110 million active users may not like what they find. Erroneous reports surfaced this week alleging Hotmail had changed users' default privacy settings. Some feared Microsoft could share entries from their Passports--a collection of personal information now necessary to open a Hotmail account--with other companies. However, Microsoft executives say the free e-mail service didn't change its current privacy policy, it merely rolled out new technology that better reflects its evolving "pure opt-in" philosophy.

Thanks to that new technology, however, many users may discover that when they signed up for the service they unwittingly agreed to share that information, which could range from an e-mail or physical address to demographic data. Hotmail launched as an independent service in July 1996, and different policies may have been in effect until Microsoft acquired the company in December 1997. For example, longtime Hotmail users were retroactively issued Passports.