My Love/Hate Relationship with Microsoft

It seems every time they do something really stupid (i.e., Vista) they do something really good for the community. One of those is their constant battles against spam and spyware. I applaud Microsoft for using some of their vast resources to combat these plagues. This is from the SANS NewsBites newsletter which you can sign up for here (it's well worth it).

--Microsoft Wins Summary Judgment Against Man for Selling Spam Lists
(15 December 2006)
A UK court granted a summary judgment against a man who was selling lists of email addresses for use in spamming schemes. A lawsuit filed by Microsoft alleged that Paul Martin McDonald's sale of the lists violated the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. A summary of the case indicates the judge found that "the evidence plainly established that the business of [McDonald's company] was supplying email lists of persons who had not consented to receive direct marketing mail and that it had encouraged purchasers of the lists to send emails to those people."