Microsoft to sue spamming group

Tech giant Microsoft will sue a number of individuals and companies for creating several fake Hotmail accounts in order to operate around spamming regulations.

John Scarrow, general manager of safety services for Microsoft, said in a blog post last week that the company has filed a lawsuit in Seattle arguing a number of individuals “opened millions of Hotmail email accounts and hired people to manually identify spam mails as legitimate mails in order to trick Hotmail into classifying spam as legitimate mail.”

Microsoft also said in its filing that spammers, “continue to adopt practices and technological devices to evade Microsoft’s technologies and to frustrate Microsoft’s efforts.”

The lawsuit alleges that the individuals enrolled in some of Microsoft’s programs under false pretences to gain access to data about certain individuals’ email activities. They then hired a team, used computer software to generate unauthorised accounts and then spammed the individuals in question.