Evil Empire

Discovered on: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15549674/

MSN has added a link button that looks just like the email-this-story service that hundreds of other sites use (I've actually written this for a site before, CNN etc use the Clickability service).

However, unlike every other site MSN launches your email client installed on your box when you hit one of these links.

Additionally, they have coded the button to use a script so you are NOT expecting the behavior. So, if you have your web surfing habits built around NOT using mail-to links because you use gmail or some other web based email, you will not know that it the type of link you
are clicking.

So basically, they took a service everyone else offers, corrupted it to something soley intended to remind you how much you are supposed to love outlook/outlook express, and then hid the fact from the user until they discover it on thier own.

This is really bad user design, and it's done on purpose.