Microsoft taking from Peter to give to Paul
Microsoft taking from Peter to give to Paul
The scene was a familiar one – Microsoft representatives in court, with the presiding judge ordering a fine of several million dollars to be paid. The twist in the tail though is that it wasn't the software giant assuming its accustomed role of digging deep in its coffers to pay up, but rather it was awarded US$4 million, after Daniel Khoshnood was ordered to pay the sum after he allegedly used Microsoft's product names fraudulently as part of a spamming exercise.
Khoshnood was also ordered to forfeit a host of domain names that resemble those operated by Microsoft, which included www.hottmail.com and www.microsoftc.com.
Microsoft expressed satisfaction at the result, describing it as a victory in the fight to deter spammers, adding that it should stand as a lesson to would-be spammers that they will be caught and prosecuted.
Good news for Microsoft then, but barely did it have a moment to count its chunk of change, when another lawsuit ended with it stumping up five times as much to bring it to an end.
Not that the software giant was in the wrong on this occasion either. It merely decided to fork out in order to bring a swift resolution to a long running trademark dispute with Linux vendor Lindows, whose name closely resembles a certain Microsoft operating system.
In return for the payout, Lindows agreed to give up the name and assign related web domains to Microsoft. The company also recently changed the name of the bulk of its products to Linspire.
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