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Microsoft Wins $3.95 Million from Spammer

LehiNephi writes "A Washington, D.C. judge fined Daniel Khoshnood, a major spammer, for pretending to be Microsoft in order to attract customers. Specifically, he registered windowsupdate.com (not to be confused with windowsupdate.microsoft.com), then sent out mass email encouraging users to download a toolbar from that website. Although the suit was not specifically about spamming, the mass emails (and subsequent complaints) were what caught Microsoft's attention. So far, Microsoft's campaign against spam has netted them $54 million from six judgments, one dismissal, four settlements, and two bankruptcies. The article doesn't mention whether the toolbar actually lived up to its claims of automatically applying security patches."

2 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't that... by Zx-man · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...a perfect occasion to flood & flame @ the /. ?

  2. the court by zogger · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The 54 million should go to the people who downloaded and installed the bogus-ware, the spam victims. MS certainly doesn't need it, and they don't deserve it from being lamers and not registering an obvious domain for them in the first place..

    So let's flame the court system and the judge.