Free Internet mail services such as the ones mentioned above
provide the same basic services that MailMan does, but they
provide them through a proprietary web site, generally with
the purpose of selling advertisements to a guaranteed repeat
audience.  Free email sites provide the user with a mailbox
and the server to access the mailbox.  MailMan is different
because it is simply a piece of software, a technology to be
applied in any number of ways.  MailMan works in conjunction
with other mail servers in order to process incoming and
outgoing mail, communicating with those servers though well-
accepted Internet standards such as the POP3 and STMP
protocols.  The primary advantage of MailMan is that
administrators can control their own MailMan installations.
They have the power to specify what mail servers MailMan
connects to, what MailMan looks like when it runs, who has
access to MailMan, etc.  When you use MailMan, you are
accessing the same email account that you normally access,
not a new account that was created just for you to access
through a free email service.  Some free email services
allow you to access your own email address through the
service, but you are still forced into using someone else’s
web server and you are forced into watching someone else’s
advertisements.  With MailMan you have much more control.