Microsoft sues again

Microsoft is back in court continuing its fight against spammers.

Microsoft is back in court continuing its fight against spammers, this time in Germany. The software giant has filed a case against a company in the North Rhine- Westphalia region of Germany and its managing director.

According to Microsoft, customers of its Hotmail email service received thousands of emails advertising web design services, online casinos and pornography, which it says were traceable back to the unnamed Westphalia firm. Microsoft alleges that the German company is part of a wider spam group operating out of the Ukraine and the US and that its managing director has been running a business renting 'bulk mailer' servers to spam companies. Since there are no anti-spam laws in Germany, Microsoft's case is based on the country's competition laws.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is upping the pressure on email senders to adopt Sender ID. Towards the end of the year, the company's Hotmail and MSN mail services will begin to flag as spam any incoming emails that do not carry a tag to verify the sender. Craig Spiezle, a director in the Technology Care and Safety group at Microsoft described the move as 'a call to action for domain holders and email senders to publish their SPF records'. It is estimated that around 30 per cent of email carries Sender ID information.

28 June 2005

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