Microsoft has won a court case against a German spammer charged with forging e-mail and making it appear to come from Microsoft's hotmail.com domain.

The regional appeals court in Karlsruhe found the person guilty of sending unsolicited mail and using Microsoft's trademark-protected Hotmail brand without the company's permission, Microsoft said Wednesday.

The spammer, whose name was not disclosed, had been distributing spam to promote his pornographic Web site for several months before the German court clamped down.

As part of the sentence, the convicted spammer agreed not to distribute forged e-mail using the Hotmail brand or face a €250,000 fine (US$314,000). In addition, he must provide Microsoft with detailed information about his e-mail promotional activities.

Microsoft views the court ruling as one way to deal with spammers in Germany in the absence of an antispam law in the country. The ruling makes the misuse of a brand name in spam a criminal offense subject to prosecution, it said.

Before the ruling, German spammers didn't have to worry about being prosecuted or having to pay high damage fees.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.