Microsoft's 'spim' suit

One of the lawsuits announced by AOL yesterday is considered the most significant suit yet filed against alleged "spimmers" -- people who send spam via instant messages and chat rooms. But contrary to some reports, while it's AOL's first spim suit, it's actually not the first lawsuit in the industry to target the practice.

Microsoft filed a suit last year in King County Superior Court (download .pdf of complaint) against a Canadian man alleged to have sent spam over the MSN Messenger instant-messaging program, as well as MSN Hotmail. The case is still pending. The complaint also includes a screenshot showing what a spim looks like, in case you haven't had the pleasure.

Despite that suit, spim isn't a major problem on MSN Messenger, according to Aaron Kornblum, Microsoft's Internet safety enforcement attorney. As mentioned in our item about the suits this morning, that's in part because of a "reverse list" feature in MSN Messenger that lets people see when someone else puts them on a buddy list, and, if they want, lets them stop that person from sending them messages. That feature also extends to IM "presence," letting MSN Messenger users block another person from knowing whether or not they're online.