Protecting your online information What is a "phishing" e-mail? "Phishing" is a term used to describe an Internet-wide problem — fraudulent e-mail designed to get your personal information. These imposter e-mails may appear to come from MSN®, MSN TV or other reputable companies, and often look very official and include logos and fonts used by the companies they imitate. But they are actually from crooks masquerading as legitimate businesses.

How the crooks get your personal information
Phishing e-mails typically suggest that if you do not update your personal information, your account will be suspended or closed. The e-mail will ask you to disclose personal information, such as your account data or Social Security number. The e-mail often points to Web sites that look real, but are phony. These Web sites are specifically designed to record the information you type into them. The crooks may use this information to access your accounts and potentially steal.

How to stay safe
The Internet is actually a pretty safe place, but as in the real world, it does require some precautionary measures and common sense to keep it that way.

What can you do to help protect yourself?
Don't choose a link sent to you in an e-mail to provide financial or personal information. MSN TV will never ask you to click on a link to update Billing or personal information. MSN TV will always include instructions in the e-mail with steps on how to access your Account from within the MSN TV service. Then you'll know the information you are providing is safe.

Look for these warning signs:

- Urgent tone — The message urges you to "act quickly", e.g. within a few days, and threatens that your account will be suspended or terminated if you do not.
- Request for financial information — They often send links to Web sites that ask for your e-mail address and password, first and last names, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, account PIN numbers and Social Security numbers.
- Fake Web address — An "@" symbol in a Web site address may indicate that the source might be imitating a company or person (For example: www.microsoft@billing.com is fake). Or, if the address includes any words between "msn" and ".com," the Web site is fraudulent (For example: msn.example.com and msnbilling.com are not Microsoft® Web sites.)
- Links to Web pages — Watch out for links in e-mail that lead to Web pages that ask for financial information. Their sites and URL may look like official company sites, but they are not.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is — Scam artists can paint attractive pictures of "valuable offers" and "great deals."

What if you've received a suspicious phishing e-mail?
If you receive suspicious e-mail that appears to come from MSN TV or MSN, please notify us immediately, by forwarding the offensive e-mail to abuse@msn.com.
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