A British judge has agreed with Microsoft’s demand to stop a man from selling compiled lists of emails that were being used by spammers to carry out mass mailings. Paul Martin McDonald, a UK national, ran a company named Bizads that offered these lists to buyers.

Microsoft brought an action against Mr McDonald, arguing that his actions were causing loss and damage to the goodwill it received, being the owner and operator of free email service Hotmail. Users of Hotmail were included in lists sold by Mr McDonald and complained about receiving unsolicited emails in their inboxes. In his defence the head of Bizads argued that these users had consented to receiving spam, but the presiding judge ruled that this was not the case.

The fact that people received unsolicited mass mailings as a direct result of lists being sold by Mr McDonald rendered him liable under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Judge Lewison, who ruled in the case, said Mr McDonald’s actions contravened regulation 22, which deals with this particular type of offence. According to the judge Microsoft suffered a loss as a result of this breach and could receive compensation. He also ruled that Bizads could no longer sell email lists, as this practice was directly responsible for spam being distributed to Hotmail accounts.