Your e-mail account is a goldmine. Technology companies push hard to keep your data secure, but there are plenty of scumbags out there who always seem to find a new way to gain an edge over the guys in white hats. Phishers, in particular, are eager to find new ways to profit from your identity and information, and they're getting some new tricks.

Phishing scam activity was quiet at the beginning of this year, according to a report in USA Today, but these attacks surged 200% from May through September, says the X-Force team at IBM (NYSE: IBM). Webmail, social media and gaming accounts are their primary targets. E-mail access, in particular, is highly sought after, since they can be use to push out spam ... while bypassing filters.

These "virgin" e-mail accounts command top dollar: a digital criminal can pick up as much as $2 for a clean account from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Live, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Gmail, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) YahooMail or AOL (NYSE: TWX). This is more than twice the amount typically paid for a stolen credit card account, according to Fred Rica, principal in the security practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Many webmail users actually do half the criminals' job for them, with 33% using just one password online and 48% using only a handful.

Microsoft Corp.'s (NYSE: MSFT) finalizing touch of the re-launch of its "Windows Love Hotmail" seems like a study in what not to do when prepping a product for mass consumption. The world's largest software company bought Hotmail in 1998 in an effort to compete with Yahoo! Mail at the time. In 2004, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) released Gmail to set the bar even higher, and in 2005 Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) upgraded its mail with technology bought from a company called Oddpost.

Fast forward to 2007 and Microsoft has again released its Hotmail product (it went back to that name after the "Live Mail" name was dropped). Funny thing, though, it looks almost identical to what the old Hotmail looked like. Reasoning? Microsoft created a completely new version that was more technologically adept and looked like a desktop email client, but the changes were too drastic for existing Hotmail customers. People don't like changes when they're comfortable, and Microsoft found this out soon enough. So, out with all the new "look and feel" features (for now) and in with the "old look" to please old customers. Thing is, you can't "innovate" unless you somewhat force customers to change (slowly, over time).

Both Microsoft's Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail have more customers than the newer Google Gmail, but that may not be the case in a few years. I would bet that most of the Yahoo! and Hotmail customers don't want to let go of those email addresses, hence they stay with the provider they've been with for a long time. Every customer has different needs for email, so the choice each makes is all relative. One thing is for sure for Microsoft: it needs to fine-tune its understanding of how to serve existing customers and recruit new ones before spending time and effort into new products that end up being somewhat reversed. That, my friends, is not a wise investment for any company that serves customers.