Posted by John Vinson

Microsoft has stood behind their Hotmail product for years. During this time, they’ve tried to develop anti-spam filters to keep users’ inboxes from being flooded with useless email. Two of their anti-spam systems were designed to help ISPs find customers who were spamming inboxes. The two programs are Junk Mail Reporting Program and Smart Network Data Services.

Microsoft has brought a lawsuit against spammers who have attacked these programs. The alleged are reported to have prevented the services from properly identifying incoming messages.

Here are a list of various functions these programs carry out:

Junk Mail Reporting Program:

- A free service to provide reports on junk e-mail issues reported by Windows Live Hotmail users

- Returns the full message with headers of any e-mail marked as “junk” or “phishing”

- Provides senders an opportunity to clean their e-mail lists and improve the quality of their content

- Helps improve sender reputation by removing unwanted subscribers from lists

Smart Network Data Services:

- A free service that provides high-level insight on how users are rating the e-mail they receive and the health of your IP space as viewed by the Windows Live Hotmail system

- Provides easy online registration and access to data

- Reveals how many users complained about your e-mail

The lawsuit being brought forth by Microsoft, claims that the defendants created millions of accounts in order to have their messages sent through as legitimate mail instead of spam. Then the defendants would contact Microsoft in order to have their company removed from the spam list. Upon catching the culprits, Microsoft claimed they violated federal law; the CAN-SPAM act.

This story will be interesting to keep an eye on for those who keep up with anti-spam information. The defendant, Boriz Mizhen, and Microsoft have butted heads before. In 2003, Microsoft sued the company for spamming and settled for a $2 million payment. Can Microsoft win round 2?

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 8:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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About the Author: John is a staff writer for webpronews