Microsoft to Fight Crime With Spammer's Millions

daria42 writes "It looks as if the $7 million Microsoft won from spam king Scott Richter won't go into a Swiss bank account and never be seen again after all. The company plans to dedicate a cool $5 mil to helping law enforcement agencies address computer-related crimes. Another $1 million will go to New York State to "expand computer-related skills training for youths and adults", with the rest being flagged to pay Microsoft's legal costs."

Comments

Hmm...

[Darren Winsper]

Does this mean we're going to see Bill Gates in a bizarre spandex outfit combating spammers around the world? I smell a Ben Affleck film!

Excuse me for being cynical !!

[Gopal.V]

a cool $5 mil to helping law enforcement agencies address computer-related crimes.

Crimes like piracy of Windows ?. Patent policing ?. More SCO like allegations on newer projects that imitate or duplicate Microsoft products ?.

Another $1 million will go to New York State to "expand computer-related skills training for youths and adults"

Train them to use Outlook, Word and Excel or do they mean .NET,C# and Monad ?. Sort of catch them young approach ?.

I've seen a lot of Microsoft charity - it's often just building a new market for themselves, locking in an expanding market or blatant tax evasionary steps . They sent 250 XP Cds to a school and mark the cost as donations. I went on TV to help FSF guys call foul on that in Kerala - apparently it seems to have made some impact there (they teach about using OpenOffice and FireFox now).

Essentially the money is in Microsoft's pockets and they are trying for Maximum ROI, rather than paying it out as dividends to their shareholders right now.