Three cheers for Microsoft, who just announced that this week it has filed seven more anti-spam lawsuits, this time taking aim specifically at porn spammers.

The lawsuits, filed in the Washington State Superior Court in Kings County, were filed against seven “John Does.” A ‘John Doe’ lawsuit happens when the plaintiff doesn’t know the actual identity of the person or persons who has caused the harm, but has enough other information on which to predicate a lawsuit. Once the lawsuit has been filed, the plaintiff can use legal discovery tools to determine the actual identity of the defendant.

The defendants are being sued by Microsoft under several aspects of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, most notably what has become known as “the Plain Brown Wrapper” clause.

This section of CAN-SPAM requires that commercial e-mail which is of an adult nature must not only adhere to the standard requirements of CAN-SPAM, such as not obfuscating the origin of the e-mail, and providing working opt-out links, but must also provide… [Continued]