Microsoft praised Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist on Monday over his work to attempt to stop two Tampa residents from sending spam. According to the lawsuit, Scott J. Filary and Donald E. Townsend are being accused of running a fake e-mail business and sending some 65,000 spam e-mails over the past year.

Microsoft had been working with Florida officials since November of last year to attempt to shut the operations of the two men down.

The spam messages ranged in topics from prescription drug sales to illegal downloads of copyrighted movies. The e-mails pointed to about 75 different Web sites that were part of the scam.

"We're convinced that strong actions like those being taken today by the Florida attorney general will help make illegal spam a thing of the past," said Nancy Anderson, Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. "We're happy to help and delighted this strong action is being taken to protect consumers."

The case is not the company's first attempt to combat spam; in recent months, Microsoft has become very aggressive in using legal measures to stop the ever-increasing amount of junk e-mail on the Internet.

Monday's lawsuit, however, is different from many of the suits that Microsoft has been filing against bulk-mailers - most have been "John Doe" lawsuits, where the identity of the defendant is not immediately known. Last Thursday, Microsoft announced it had filed 117 lawsuits against alleged phishers using this method.

Previously, Microsoft had successfully brought legal action against spammers in Washington State, New York and Texas.