Hotmail Addresses Passed Around

WASHINGTON — Hotmail, the free e-mail service from Microsoft, is divulging subscribers’ e-mail addresses, cities and states to a public Internet directory site that combines the information with telephone numbers and home addresses.

Hotmail customers are automatically added to Infospace’s Internet White Pages directory unless they remove the check from a box in their registration form and “opt out,” company officials said. Critics say users may be putting themselves at risk of receiving junk e-mail, known as spam, because they overlook the check box.