Patriotic American users of Microsoft's Hotmail service may be surprised when trying to obtain an email address. The company does not allow new users to sign up for a user name containing the word "american."

At first glance, it seemed that Hotmail is taking precaution to limit phishing attempts which often rely on official-sounding addresses to trick recipients into paying money to people posing as governmental entities. However, my quick check showed that names with "canadian," "francais," "german," "australian," "english," and "deutsch," are all allowed. User names with "america" are permitted, however. Names with "british," are not.

It seems that American and British are the only country adjectives not allowed, even "nigerian" is considered acceptable, ironic considering the plethora of email scammers out there posing as Nigerian government officials.

Is this a case of Microsoft just being lazy and not fighting scammers in other countries, going after the most commonly used phishers, or is something more nefarious at work? (HT: FR)

For humorless lefties out there, the headline is a joke. Don't take things so seriously.