The company wins instant-messaging spam lawsuit

Mar 12, 2010 10:20 GMT  ·  By

In mid-2009, Microsoft announced that it had kicked off legal action against spammers using its instant messaging client to send users unsolicited messages. As a direct consequence of the software giant’s lawsuit, Funmobile Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company owned by Christian and Henrick Heilesen, has been prohibited from spamming Windows Live Messenger customers. The practice of IM spam is known as spim, and the Redmond company had alleged that Funmobile had been using such practices since March 2009.

“I’m happy to report that this week, Microsoft has reached a settlement with Funmobile. Under the terms of the agreement, Funmobile will refrain from ‘spimming’ customers or contacts of Windows Live Messenger and will make a cash payment to Microsoft. The successful resolution of this case sends a clear signal that Microsoft does not tolerate abuse of its networks and we will continue to take action to protect our customers,” Tim Cranton, associate general counsel, revealed.

The flood of spam continues to be a problem for all Internet-based communication services, whether they be email or instant messaging, and has spread to comments posted on websites, blogs and forums, and to social networks. And, despite victories like the one obtained by Microsoft against Funmobile, the spam plague continues to rage rampant.

“‘Spim’ – or instant messaging spam – attacks targeted victims with IMs that appear to come from the e-mail address of a friend or acquaintance and invite the recipient to click on a link. This can potentially allow ‘spimmers’ to collect usernames and passwords and use them to access proprietary systems and customers’ accounts. Attackers can then ‘scrape’ or ‘harvest’ the contacts within a victim’s account and send unsolicited bulk IMs to each of those contacts. Such attacks on instant messaging services are more than just a nuisance; they are a threat to user privacy,” Cranton added.

At the end of February 2010, Microsoft obtained another important victory against spammers, by successfully taking down the Waledac botnet. However, in these two cases and in others, it is clear that authorities around the world need to do more to help tackle spammers, and that the legal procedures need not only to increase in frequency but also to be streamlined so that sources of spam be shut down as fast as possible.