Email is dead.
They did not want to recognise the evidence:
- Verisign and their wildcard fiasco preventing spam-blocking for forged, non-existent domains
- DDoS attacks taking out many effective blacklists
- Loud complaining about blocking email
- Inane bitching and sniping about tagging email
- An Oklahoma judge overriding the requests of 50 million people
In short, you are all owned by marketing types, and have been for quite some time now.
In light of these facts, as of 1 Oct 2003, the titular head of they will no longer be dealing directly with email in any form. If it is important enough, there are other method to use to make contact.