This week's court victory for Impulse Media Group, an operator of pornographic Web sites that had been accused of illegal spamming, was a loss for the Federal Trade Commission. The agency brought the civil suit against the company, leading to the trial in U.S. District Court in Seattle. But Microsoft also played a big role in the case. The company provided much of the evidence against Impulse Media, in the form of messages it gathered in special Hotmail "trap accounts" that capture spam.

Those trap accounts are part of the company's broader effort to fight spam in the courts and on other fronts. The company has also filed more than 130 spam cases of its own in the U.S. (See this recent story for more details.) Following Impulse Media's victory, it might be reasonable to wonder if Microsoft will change its approach to such cases.

At least in one respect, it doesn't look like it will.

Aaron Kornblum, senior attorney on Microsoft's Internet Safety Enforcement team, declined to comment on the verdict, but he said via e-mail today that it "does not impact how Microsoft will continue to assist government efforts to help keep people safe online."

The jury in the Impulse Media case found that the company wasn't responsible for e-mail messages sent by its affiliates in violation of the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act. (Among other things, the messages contained sexually explicit content but weren't labelled sexually explicit, as the law requires.) Impulse Media defended itself by citing its policy against spamming by its affiliates, saying the primary purpose of the affiliate program is to generate traffic from other Web sites, not from unsolicited e-mail messages. It said it terminated its relationships with affiliates who broke the rules, although government lawyers contended that it was too easy for the affiliates to sign up again or use alternative accounts.

Robert Apgood, the lead attorney for Impulse Media in the case, said in a follow-up conversation today that he felt the government didn't adequately prove the e-mails in question actually came from Impulse Media affiliates. That's one of the ways the Impulse Media verdict could affect future spam-related cases, he said.

"I think people who adopt plaintiffs' positions in spam-related litigation are going to have to be more conscientious in their efforts now," Apgood said. "They're going to have to do what we always do in litigation, and that is fully document their evidence if they're going to prosecute somebody or seek civil liability for it based on that evidence."