An attack against Microsoft's Hotmail site - which the company is blaming on account-harvesting malware - is resulting in the mass-deletion of users' contact lists and sent e-mails.

Microsoft has filed a patent for advertising images, audio, or text which require users to answer a product-related question to continue.

Lance Atkinson has been ordered to pay £35,500 in fines by a New Zealand Court - but has already been fined $2.2 million by the FTC without seeming to slow his efforts down.