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Legalbrief   |   your legal news hub Wednesday 15 April 2026

Microsoft, Amazon sue former mass e-mailer

Canadian Eric Head, a former spam king, who had apparently quit the bulk e-mail business, is again being sued by US companies for unsolicited messages, reports The Globe and Mail.

In addition, Head is being accused of using the Amazon.com trademark in messages to imply falsely that they were sent or endorsed by the online marketing company. The new suit alleged that Microsoft’s Hotmail service was burdened with hundreds of millions of messages and that hundreds of thousands of Hotmail accounts were opened under fictitious names as covert spam channels. The suit also alleges that the messages featured false headers. It is unclear whether the alleged spamming incidents took place after mid-June, when Head settled a lawsuit with Yahoo and urged all bulk e-mailers to cease operations unless they obeyed the new US anti-spam legislation. Full report in The Globe and Mail