I've been somewhat bitter about web.de ever since I got suckered into a "free trial of premium account" which turned into 1 year of having to pay, buuut that was really my own fault and a while back. Also, they had the maximum limit of 500 e-mails for free accounts - is that still around? because it made getting e-mails via anything but POP3 kind of pointless, which is not good for a web-based service.

Although... at this point I would actually be WILLING to pay for my e-mail if it meant I was guaranteed privacy/people not e-stalking me and selling my information to the top bidder. The DW model, essentially.

(...now I am imagining the OTW creating a fannish e-mail service.)