Microsoft Sues Spammers

By Agence France-Presse Microsoft Corp. said June 16 it filed 15 lawsuits against so-called "spammers" in the U.S. and Britain accused of flooding the company's Internet customers with more than 2 billion unsolicited e-mails. The Redmond, Wash.-based company filed 13 U.S. actions in Washington state, which recently passed an anti-spam law, and other jurisdictions, and two cases in British courts. In some cases, the spammers are alleged to have used deceptive and misleading subject lines to disguise e-mail messages that actually contained pornographic images, dating service solicitations and other adult services, Microsoft said in a statement. One case involved e-mail messages that include a false virus warning that instructed recipients to download an "update" purportedly to protect their computers that was nothing more than a toolbar that seems to track their movements on the Internet. In other cases, defendants are alleged to have "spoofed" the sender's e-mail address, making it seem that the spam originated from hotmail.com or other recognized senders, Microsoft said. Earlier this year, Microsoft, along with Yahoo, EarthLink and America Online, agreed to cooperate to solve some of the technical issues associated with spam. Microsoft said it would continue to work on new technology as well as legal action to fight spam. Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2003