• Microsoft has settled a Hotmail-related lawsuit filed by Harris Interactive (www.harrisinteractive.com), a marketing research company best known for the Harris Poll, its decades-old public-opinion survey. Harris filed lawsuits against Microsoft, AOL, and a dozen other firms when it discovered that e-mail-based surveys sent to members of its 6.5 million strong "online market research panel" were being discarded by filters used by the defendants to eliminate unsolicited bulk e-mails, also known as "spam." All the e-mail providers named in the lawsuits rely on a "blacklist" of known spammers maintained by Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS)—a nonprofit company based in Redwood, CA, that was formed to fight commercial e-mail abuse. Harris dismissed the lawsuit after Microsoft agreed to allow e-mail from Harris Interactive to reach Hotmail users. Harris has reached a similar agreement with AOL and the other dozen service providers.