Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Files 15 Lawsuits Against Spammers

Posted by timothy on from the better-use-of-lawyers dept.

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.

16 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Gorilla Against Spam!! (GAS) by jkrise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's amazing how while suing spammers and getting all the good PR, MS is
    also blocking anti-spam legislation.
    http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercuryne ws/business/61 13665.htm

    "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....
    1. Re:Gorilla Against Spam!! (GAS) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Bullcrap.

      Just look at K-Mart for a great example of this -- I have yet to get them to remove one of my forwarding aliases from their stupid system.

      Why? Some idiot manager bought a cd of 5 million emails to add to their "Bluelight CRAP" email book. One, of course, was the harvested alias of mine.

      So, I called them. Told them in no uncertain terms to take that off.

      "But sir, why don't you just send the unsubscribe from that email account?"

      It's a fucking forwarding alias. I CANNOT SEND MAIL FROM IT. Therefore I never opted in. But K-Mart won't unsubscribe without an email specifically from that address.

      We went back and forth on this for about 15 minutes. I asked for the manager of their phone bank for the email division and got him. He denied ever doing something like that. Then he told me straight-out that only by sending an email to them could I have gotten subscribed in the first place so obviously I had opted in and could opt out the same way.

      He's obviously a fucking liar and DID buy a scavenged email CD from someone, or else they did a web harvest themselves.

      Don't kid yourselves. You can't trust the unsubscribe from a so-called "legitimate" business any more than you can the one from the spammers.

    2. Re:Gorilla Against Spam!! (GAS) by Eccles · · Score: 5, Funny

      There's more to this than meets the eye, surely.

      You may be right, but don't call me Shirley.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    3. Re:Gorilla Against Spam!! (GAS) by Ethidium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >It's a fucking forwarding alias. I CANNOT SEND MAIL FROM IT.

      Yes you can. Just about any mailer lets you set the "from" address to whatever you want.

      >He's obviously a fucking liar and DID buy a scavenged email CD from someone, or else they did a web harvest themselves.

      Unless somebody else opted in from your mail address. Or you accidentally entered it on a web form and forgot to uncheck the "opt-in" checkbox.

      This kind of ire and anti-corporate attitude is not in any way constructive. Big corporations are a permanent part of our economic system, and in many cases, provide useful goods and services that we all enjoy (major airlines, for instance). I'll be the first to admit that in some cases the corps well overstep their bounds and need to be put in their place (cf Microsoft, SCO, RIAA); but the vast majority of them are in it to make money, which they do best by serving the customer's interest. And when you have a personal problem with a corp, it usually doesn't mean the corp is bad, it means somebody isn't doing their job. Call customer service, write the CEO, and usually things work out in the end.

      If nothing else, when K-Mart spams you, you know whom to sue. The big problem with most spam is if you don't know where it's coming from, you're powerless to stop it.

      --
      \
    4. Re:Gorilla Against Spam!! (GAS) by Nato_Uno · · Score: 5, Informative

      Under the Washington law (Revised Code of Washington 19.190) both the end-user recipient and the "interactive computer service" that that recipient uses may sue the spammer. The "interactive computer service" is not suing on the user's behalf, but on their own behalf.

      And I think this is great, personally. If all major ISPs did this, SPAM load would go down significantly. Of course it wouldn't disappear completely, and the really tricky spammers would be trickier, but the overall load would certainly go down and the remaining SPAM would very likely be easier to block...

      --

      Have fun,

      Nathan 'Nato' Uno
      http://web.unos.net/
  2. Full list of charges including details by Wizard+of+OS · · Score: 5, Informative

    A full list can be found on microsoft's site:

    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Ju n0 3/0617SpamEnforcementFS.asp

    </karmawhore>

    --

    --
    If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
    1. Re:Full list of charges including details by Croaker · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ah, this page brought a smile to my face just by knowing that soon, a Google search for "beefupyourpenis.com" will probably lead to a Microsoft page.

  3. Microsoft? Spammers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    But... who do we root against? If only Linus were somehow involved, it'd all be so clear!

    My brain hurts!

  4. ahhh crap...... by Lxy · · Score: 5, Funny

    We hate spammers.
    We hate Microsoft.
    Microsoft sues spammers.
    Dangit.

    --

    There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
    :wq
    1. Re:ahhh crap...... by yatest5 · · Score: 5, Funny
      Linux: Telling Microsoft where to go since 1991

      Ha, that's like 'school nerds, telling high school jocks where to go since 1991 - "jocks, please go to the prom and screw the hottest chicks in school"'.

      --
      • Mod parent up! [a] by Anonymous Coward (Score:5) Thurs, June 31, @13:37
  5. Great but... by wiggys · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is really great and everything, but they can only sue the spammers they can track down and identify.

    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.

    1. Re:Great but... by Steve+B · · Score: 5, Funny
      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

      True, but not particularly relevant. A convincing demonstation that spamming is likely to result in 2-5 years of testing the effectiveness of your cellmate's herbal Viagra and penile enhancement, won't deter everybody, but it will deter enough people to keep the bandwidth theft level down to something manageable.

      --
      /. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
  6. I'd love to see this trial in person by drgroove · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mainly just to see first hand an accused Spammer being cross-examined by a Microsoft Lawyer, dressed up in that stupid butterfly outfit...

  7. Just because there's a fight... by SpotBug · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Doesn't mean it has to be Good vs. Evil.

    Fights can be Evil vs. Evil, too.

    --
    cygnuhchur
  8. In other news today... by Noryungi · · Score: 5, Funny

    DEATH STAR (AP) 2003/06/18 --

    Darth Vader, Lord of Sith and Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, has announced today his intention to sue Sauron of Mordor, the official "Dark Lord" of Middle Earth, for violating his Intellectual Property (IP).

    Darth Vader spokesdroid K4VC5 briefly commented to the intergalactic press: "Darth Vader is, most certainly, the original Dark Lord, and we feel that Sauron of Mordor, no matter how creative and evil, has no right to call himself the 'Dark Lord' of Middle Earth". He added that Darth Vader legal team would pursue damages worth "several billions" of Galactic Credits.

    Sauron, Dark Lord of Middle Earth, was unavailable to comment, but well-informed sources close to Mordor report that "his evilness" promised to rain death and destruction on the first legal storm trooper to ever set foot on Middle Earth.

    Darth Vader spokesdroid also confirmed that Lucifer, the star attorney of Mephistopheles, Baal, Satan & Associates Law Firm (LLC) has been retained to defend a case which promises to be one of the toughest legal fight in the history of Evil(tm).

    Lucifer first (and best known) legal battle involved the semitic God YHWH (pronounced: "Yahweh") for the control of the "Garden of Eden" real-estate property. That case was widely considered a draw, and was settled out of court.

    Dr Evil, widely considered as an authority on Evil(tm) only commented: "Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!", and declined to elaborate any further.

    That's all for business news. Film at 11.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
  9. Re:What about MS by mosschops · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just this morning I got 5 emails from hotmail accounts asking if I wanted:

    Spammers fake the sender's address all the time. If you dug into the mail header details I'm willing to bet they didn't come from Hotmail servers.

    Try typing this in exactly as shown:

    telnet your.smtp.server 25
    HELO somedomain.com
    MAIL FROM:
    RCPT TO:
    DATA
    Subject: junk subject line

    junk body text
    .

    The blank line after the subject and the dot on the line by itself are important.

    Congratulations - you've just sent yourself a forged e-mail. Easy wasn't it? :-)