Paul Martin McDonald, a British citizen, has been taken to court by Microsoft and has been prevented from selling lists with Hotmail email addresses that would later be used as destinations for spam. McDonald operated through his company Bizads, through which it commercialized the email addresses. The court granted Microsoft the summary management the Redmond Company had sought and stopped the Bizads business from operating.

Microsoft argued to the court that due to the spam volume received by Hotmail members the company experienced loss and damage to the good will, and that Bizads and McDonald were in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations.

"Microsoft had a cause of action under the Regulations, as it fell within the class of persons for whom the benefit of the statutory requirement in the Regulations was imposed and the purpose of the Regulations was to enable a claim for relief to be brought," commented the judge. "The evidence plainly established that the business of Bizads 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. The lists contravened reg. 22, as they concerned the sending of unsolicited emails and the words of the Bizads website instigated the sending of emails."

"This ruling represents a significant step forward in the UK and across Europe in discouraging perpetrators of spam by encouraging organizations to bring court proceedings against those who continue to conduct these illegal activities," stated a Microsoft representative. "Spam is damaging to all users of the Internet, placing enormous demands on resources for both individuals and organizations. Microsoft is committed to developing assistive technologies to help people reduce the levels of unsolicited email they receive and to using legal means against those who unlawfully instigate or transmit spam."