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.
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
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!
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
``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.
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?