Live.com

Every so often, a couple times a week,  something deposits a little message on the status bar or whatever the area is next to the system tray. It is usually labeled as whatever@live.com  I forgot to write down what the name on the left side is. It is accompanied by a sound effect like an e-mail alert. I do not use Messenger or anything like it, so I consider this kind of annoyance to be malware since I did not request it or know where it comes from.

Doing a Google search on Live.com seems to indicate that it has something to do with Windows. Does anyone know what it is or if there is way to disable it? Scans do not show anything to worry about.