Microsoft, Amazon team up
2004-09-30 10:35
Washington - Microsoft and Amazon.com said on Tuesday they joined up to take legal action in an effort to halt a series of fraud schemes using faked or "spoofed" websites.
The statement said the schemes involved a technique known as "phishing", using an e-mail disguised to look as if it comes from a legitimate company in an effort to obtain sensitive financial information.
The two firms said they filed a joint federal lawsuit against a Canadian spam operation believed responsible for sending millions of e-mail messages, including some purporting to have come from Amazon.com, Hotmail.com and other domains, a practice called "spoofing".
The suit, filed in the US District Court in Seattle, alleges that Gold Disk Canada Inc of Kitchener, Ontario, and its associates employed "illegal and deceptive spamming campaigns" that misused Microsoft's MSN Hotmail services and forged the name of Amazon.com", according to a joint statement of the two firms.
Amazon.com filed separate lawsuits in King County Superior Court in Seattle against unidentified defendants allegedly involved in phishing schemes designed to defraud Amazon.com customers.
In one case, e-mails indicated that account information may been compromised and that "as a preventative measure", the recipient needed to follow the links in the e-mail to a webpage where the recipient was asked to provide his e-mail address, Amazon.com password, and credit card information.
Another asked for Amazon passwords to complete transactions about items supposedly being sold.
"The best way to stop spammers and phishers is to hit them hard in the pocketbook," said Washington state Attorney General Christine Gregoire.
"I am pleased to see Microsoft and Amazon.com team up and use our laws as they were intended. They pose a powerful legal threat and will send a strong message that there will be a high cost to pay for those who flood our mail boxes with irritating, offensive and fraudulent junk mail."