[Web4lib] IT wants to block Hotmail

[Baldwin, Susan]

Hi,

Our city IT dept recently received a letter from our ISP stating that we are in violation of our terms of service due to someone sending inappropriate/threatening email from our domain. Apparently the e-mail was sent from a hotmail account, so the city wants to block access to hotmail, across the city. This would severely affect our patrons, as many of them use hotmail. In addition, they are also now thinking of blocking web-based e-mail access on all city computers, although we are not sure if this would include our public computers.

My question is, has anyone else had any similar experiences? Other than complaining to IT and reminding them know how our patrons use the computers, we are not sure what else to do. I'm sure there is more to the story, but this is all we know so far.

Thanks in advance.

Sue

Sue Baldwin
Technology Librarian
Newport News Public Library System
700 Town Center Drive Suite 300
Newport News, VA 23606
sbaldwin at nngov.com