"We will continue to attack these individuals in court, through legislation, and in partnership with other leading technology companies. We work hard to earn the trust of our customers and will not tolerate these efforts to take advantage of unsuspecting consumers." - Amazon.

Microsoft and Amazon have joined forces to file several lawsuits against individuals accused of such crimes as spamming, phishing and e-mail address spoofing. Together, they will use their alliance to pursue people who have barraged consumers both with spam and with phishing scams generated from spoofed e-mail addresses which have contained the Amazon domain name.

These kinds of scams hurt Internet business, not just for Microsoft and Amazon but for all companies engaged in using the Internet for sales and commerce. These activities undermine the public's confidence in the Internet and in on-line shopping. And so, they must be stopped.