Sorry, Bill, but this was no joke. The point is as CapK made clear - you get what you pay for, and you never get nuttin for nuttin. In the case of Hotmail, the price you pay for their free service is allowing them to plunder your communication to their profit. Here's a link to the M$ page itself, a page on which they specifically warn you that your communications are public, not private.
http://www.passport.com/Consumer/TermsOfUse.asp