Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Files 15 Lawsuits Against Spammers
Popsikle writes "A Seattle Paper reports that 'Microsoft Corp. announced it has filed 15 lawsuits against alleged e-mail spammers in Washington state and the United Kingdom on Tuesday.' It states the tough anti-spam laws in UK and Washington allows ISP's to sue spammers. This could be a good test of the new anti-spam laws." There's coverage on CNN as well. Microsoft has picked a good venue for such a case.
It's amazing how while suing spammers and getting all the good PR, MS ise ws/business/61 13665.htm
also blocking anti-spam legislation.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercuryn
"We have personnel around the world engaged in those battles, and we are tapping that expertise and working with these people to fight spam as well." Can't they do the simple exercise of examining their own user's spam - hotmail users can give billions in a day.
If hotmail users could even get $5 per spam, they'd be richer than Tiger Woods.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
AFAIK, some spammers go to great lengths to keep their identities hidden (hi-jacking other people's computer systems etc) so although the threat of legal action will be a big deterrent there's always going to be spam unless we can come up with a technological solution to stop it.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
I hope the Slashdot crowd shows a little maturity on this one. I dislike many of Microsofts tactics as much as the next man but in this case Iâ(TM)m rather pleased to see the might of their legal department behind something that could benefit us all.
The hatred against the spammers is stronger 'round here. I've never seen a Slashdot campaign to subscribe Bill Gates to hundreds of magazines and newsletters, after all; and the worst I've seen done to Ballmer is the Monkey-Dance video.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I wonder what cost spam has on MS itself... Think of all the resources on Hotmail that get taken up with sent and received spam... Surely it would add up?
:)
Then again, it might not matter to such a large company... but it's MS, there must be some monetary explanation for all this
Forget the beer, pack off and watch your purse very carefully.
/ 61 13665.htm
It's not so straightforward as you think:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Oh no. No no no no NO. If someone spoofs millions of spams, coming from your e-mail address, and you end up being sued for vast amounts of money as a result, would you consider it fair? It is in no way Microsoft's fault that someone faked their address, and as such they shouldn't be sued for it.
I'm not sure they should be suing for it, either, although I'm strongly of the opinion that pretending to be someone else, in whatever medium, should be illegal. I believe in the right to anonymity, not the right to tell everyone you're me!
Gee, you mean like producing a secure operating system and email applications? How funny would it be if it goes to court and the spammers had to testify how easy it was to hijack Windows systems.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Doesn't mean it has to be Good vs. Evil.
Fights can be Evil vs. Evil, too.
cygnuhchur
Of course Microsoft cares about the little guy. Or rather, about him and the billion other little guys with a few spare bucks in their wallets.
The little guys impressions are important, as long as they add up and might seriously affect business.
In this case, Microsoft is the biggest karma whore of them all.
Regards,
--
*Art
It is good to know that Microsoft is taking a major step forward to combat against Spam. We need more major corporate to do similar thing as Microsoft is doing right now. These corporates have enough power and money to deal with spam in a legal way. Of course, if the spammer chooses to send out junk through an SMTP server that's outside the US territory, there is nothing much we can do. It is sad, but I am glad Microsoft is taking actions! Go Microsoft!
Actually, I like Microsoft. I just hate their business practices.
What stops Microsoft from appending some legal agreement in an EULA that specifies that their software can not be used by any individuals for the purpose of proliferating spam email. Define spam. Define a harsh penalty per email sent. Then try to enforce it.
What might stop this from happening? Why wouldn't we make this a part of the GPL? I think everybody besides spammers hates spam, right?
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
You're just not paranoid enough.. Let's see. Spam is only spam when it's send by a company with who you don't have a bussiness relationship. Wasn't that the basic idea behind the american anti-spam laws?
Well, guess who has a bussiness relationship with 99% of the computerusers?
They're just killing some competition, making a few bucks and some goodwill. And soon we will see the announcement for "Windows DC" for "Direct Communication with our valued custommers".
Don't you worry, with a little fantasy MS is still the evil empire and what ever good the do is first and formost good for themself..
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
...is to plug the holes that allow for all of the email harvesting within Outlook via viruses, and consequent loads of spam from Windows based virii.
But Big Up to M$. Using their power for good.
See i do say nice things about M$ when they deserve it.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
``We don't think all commercial e-mail should be banned,'' he said. Microsoft favors self regulation by the industry ``to establish standards that can evolve over time,'' he said.
and you think it's reasonable?
It's typical duplicity from M$, "I won't let you do what I do, and that's how we make our money and bring you software that does what you wan." Microsoft has been trying all along to criple it's "client" machines so that they are dependent on Microshaft "server" machines and all dependent on M$. It does not do what I want it to and never will.
Mass mailing is just one more instance of "client" gelding and they have media help for it. A lack of mail agents in M$ software is typical, where the free world has many such as Sendmail and Exim. Their intrests here line up with traditional publishers who wish to keep the playing field uneven. To bring this lack of mailing ability to free software, AOL/MSN and others have sucessfully threatened smaller ISPs to block both inbound and outbound port 25 traffic. Forcing a cable company to give up a competitive advantage like web and mail serving stinks like an anti-trust violation, but that's what a tech told me happend recently when I was forced to use their smtp server as a relay for the first time. The excuse given was to keep cracked M$ boxes from spamming, so M$ created the problem to begin with and the cracking spammers did not lack mail agents, and it's not likely to help. No other smtp server could be used but theirs, enabling Carnivore and censorship, disabling TLS and privacy.
This is absolutely what the internet is NOT about. The internet is supposed to be a network of peer computers. There's not supposed to be central control or a difference between the ability of one computer and another. Microsoft never liked the internet anyway. They really hate free software that gives people ability that M$ doea not want them to have. Microsoft thinks it owns the internet and can make it into the next broadcast TV. They can, as long people think such things are reasonable.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's the amount of cash in circulation, which is tiny fraction of the actual money in the US, let alone the world. Remember, money is a fiction, no matter whether it's given a physical representation or not.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
The idea that Microsoft is doing this just for PR is silly. The idea that Microsoft is doing this to make people happy is silly too. The fact of the matter is, MS, like any good company, is doing this for money. Spam costs them a LOT. The cost of spam is huge and it is rising. Email systems aren't free, and when 80 percent of what you have going is garbage, you could save a ton of cash if you could cut that out. I dislike MS as much as the next guy, but this is getting out of hand. Some of you think that MS doesn't do ANYTHING unless it is either evil or underhanded. Fact of the matter is they do what they do to make money. Sometimes that's good for us, sometimes it's bad.
Depending on your age, it may just be a matter of waiting a little longer. I see exactly that happening all around me. The bullies who gave me such a hard time in middle school have wound up in jail, rehab, or some kind of probation. The jocks have either matured into working adults and gone on to lead fairly successful lives (and still have a hot chick), or have attempted to stay jocks forever and ended up in jobs with the local janitorial services.
The geeks, on the other hand, have almost all turned out okay. Most of my geek friends are either in some kind of graduate program or working at a tech job with a respectable salary. And as far as "screwing hot chicks" is concerned...that's not what makes you happy. But dating is fun, and when you're young and 've got a good job, it comes fairly easily.
I'd suggest that you try to get past all the "evil" things MS did.
Also get past all the good moves MS did (yup...there are)
I see MS...or any company for that matter as an entity.
An entity with attributes. Attributes may be good or bad.
The MS entity does nothing for nothing, it has a goal, not all goal are approved by other entities but there are still goals to reach.
And again, in these goals, we may add attributes to classify them as good or evil goals.
I'm being a little abstract here, let me try to clarify that.
Sure MS did some very nasty stuff...well ok, not some, a LOT!
But that doesn't make all of their goals nasty.
In this instance, filing a suit against spammers, IMO, is a good goal.
Now. OF COURSE MS has some idea behind the head with that and of course they will also try to get a benefit out of it. Who wouldn't ?? Wouldn't you ?
But then, as always, we will find a way to get around MS and things will globally remain unchanged. That is, 90% of the end-user will go for MS and the 10% (that's us, the geeks) will use our own means.
Quite honestly, I don't care what MS intends to gain out of the Anti-Spam war, is it for the PR, is it for a long-term dominance ?
I...don't....care
I'm so sick of spammers that if someone can effectively reduce the number of spammers, let it be, we'll deal with the consequences later.
One problem at a time, as always. Try to do all at once and you fail everywhere.
I'm no MS evangelist, I despise many of the anti-trust violation they make, I despise their agressive tactics, the way the crush down their opponents instead of making their product better to actually compete.
But if MS also happens to be the only organization with enough power, enough strengh to scare spammers, let MS put its power for a good use for once.
Programmer In Training (who was wayyy to lazy to log in)
friends don't let friends install MS junk, your sig says... surely Microsoft-hating husbands don't let their wives open hotmail accounts? For someone accusing MS of duplicity and double standards, your own standards seem pretty flexible...
If you don't like MS sticking ads into hotmail messages, don't use them - it's not hard. It's not like you don't have other options for email.
So damn Microsoft for making your life worse by providing your wife with a free e-mail address. And damn them even more for suing spammers because its in their interests do do so (no company - not the most benevolent corporation in the world - would launch a legal action against spammers out of sheer public spiritedness - for a start, it's kinda hard to get a court to rule in your favour if the person you're suing has done nothing to harm you)
As to your linked post, well.. if your ISP blocks port 25 traffic, change ISPs. Demand an ISP with an open routing policy. You may have to pay for the privilege, but if enough people do it, market forces will change that. Remember that connecting to the internet through someone else's server is always a privilege, not a fundamental human right, though, and it's up to them to choose what conditions they offer that service under.
You're moaning about MS forcing you to look at hotmail ads, and lobbying small ISPs to shut their gateways to outbound port 25 traffic, but it seems like pretty easy stuff to get around to me.
Aren't these the same people who won't actually sell your hotmail address but will collect and sell every none hotmail address that you send to or receive mail from?
Microsoft is the 800 ton gorilla that's been trying to crush Linux for so long.
The spam community is just as resolved at surviving any attacks as the Linux community.
I'm against all forms of commertal e-mail myself not becouse it's all evil but becouse spammers are so evil in the way they twist everything.
The opt out system was part of e-mail lists everywhere. Someone somehow accadentally opts you in or worse dose so as a prank so you opt out again. Spammers then include the opt out system and ignore it or worse use it to scoop up e-mail addresses.
Every time lagit commertal e-mail finds some way to make it obveous they are lagit the spammer community copys them and suddenly the spam looks lagit too.
I've nothing against opt in spam. I've opt in to some spam myself BUT what I've welcomed into my system is flooeded over with junk I've never agreed to.
Every now and then I get this "Thank you for joining !!!!!" if you don't opt out you get spam from them if you do they sell your e-mail address.
And there are thousands of other tricks. They just keep comming up with new ways to thwart filters bypass spam blockers and be generally annoying.
So now Microsoft is taking on spam.....
Well... ummmmm Go Microsoft.. we hope you'll be successful in a way we know can't happen.
But hay you'll give spam a big black eye put it in the hospital for a while and drain your FUD department of all resorces.
Now how can the Linux community help Microsoft on this. I think with a little more effort Spam won't be going to the hospital but the morge...
Muahahaha
I don't actually exist.
I agree. I get several e-mails a day from ISPs saying that they deleted a virus attached to the e-mail I sent them. Turns out that someone is spoofing my domain name. Seems like if it's illegal for someone to sign my name, it should be illegal for them to pretend to be me on the 'net, particularly when they could potentially be exposing ME to a lawsuit if they happen to send the e-mail to one of the states wherer it is illegal.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I'll bite. The established business relationship idea is teh same as what is written regarding junk faxes and prerecorded solicitations. That law has been around for over a decade (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991). Just because you had an EBR (establish business relationship) it does not mean that you cannot end it. For example, my local paper made a telemarketing call to me, and since I have an EBR with them, there was no problem. I asked for, and received, a copy of their policy regarding their do-not-call list and stated I was terminating the EBR in terms of future telemarketing. No, I can still be a subscriber, yet any telemarketing calls I get from them in the future will be illegal, and I can subsequently claim statutory damages.
If they allow you to unsubscribe, or more pointedly terminate the EBR in regards to future marketing, then there isn't a real problem that I would see. Most of the spam is not from reputable companies, it is the fly-by-night ethicless scammers. I have no problem unsubscribing from a EBR and can be comfortable that I won't have to do it again.
What we need to a powerhorse like MSoft to bring the first fights and have solid case law that we all can use later. This, in tern, allows smaller ISPS to use the case law to their benefit without having to go to the enormous expense to see a case like this through. It will take several cases before spammers back off, but if this goes through, then you will see things start to taper off. The exact thing happened in the junk faxing world..a few cases open up company's eyes in terms of compliance.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.