Microsoft has stopped a man from selling lists of email addresses which were being used for spam. A court has granted a summary judgment against Paul Martin McDonald, stopping him from selling the lists.

Microsoft owns and runs Hotmail, a free, web based email service. It sought a summary judgment from the English courts to stop McDonald from operating his Bizads business, which offered for sale lists of email addresses of people which were used as the basis of spam by those who purchased the lists.

Microsoft said that the activity breached the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations. It argued that because a high proportion of the people receiving the emails complained about them it was suffering loss and damage to the goodwill it had as operators of Hotmail.

Judge Lewison agreed and granted the judgment against McDonald. Pointing out that the law was designed to protect both email subscribers and electronic communications networks, Lewison said that Microsoft had a right to use the law.