This week the computer giant teamed with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to launch a series of civil lawsuits aimed at OptInRealBig.com LLC and its owner Scott Richter, in addition to some other well-known email marketers.
Spitzer and Microsoft have been involved in an ongoing investigation against OptInRealBig.com LLC, Synergy 6 Inc., and Delta Seven Communications LLC, which are all successful, highly profitable companies that use deceptive emails to market products.
According to Info World, Microsoft has been tracking the flow of unsolicited email into Hotmail "spam traps," set up as decoys.
In some instances, according to Info World, the spam companies named in the lawsuit are known to have sent out an estimated 250 million email messages on a daily basis.
The spam emails tracked through Hotmail were ideal examples of all the email practices the new Can Spam law signed by President Bush seeks to outlaw, including the use of misleading message headers.
Spitzer filed the lawsuits in New York's Supreme Court Thursday and he is seeking penalties for each spam email sent. According to Info World, damages could tally around $20 million.
Microsoft and Spitzer are particularly intent on driving OptInRealBig.com LLC out of business. The successful email spam company reaps in several million dollars a month, says Info World.
But Microsoft's venom for spammers doesn't just stop there. The computer giant also intends to go after the same defendants through the Redmond, Washington court system, piling on additional penalties of around $18 million.
Microsoft has been hot on the trail of spammers for the past six months, in addition to funding a bounty program through the FBI to catch several notorious virus writers.
XBiz was unable to get comment from OptInRealBig at the time of this printing.