Microsoft Drops Suit Against Firm In Botnet Case 49
wiredmikey writes "Microsoft has dismissed a lawsuit against a company it contended a month ago was at the heart of the now-defunct Kelihos botnet. In September, Microsoft named Dominique Piatti and his company dotFree Group SRO as controllers of the botnet. The move marked the first time Microsoft had named a defendant in one of its botnet-related civil suits. 'Since the Kelihos takedown, we have been in talks with Mr. Piatti and dotFree Group s.r.o. and, after reviewing the evidence voluntarily provided by Mr. Piatti, we believe that neither he nor his business were involved in controlling the subdomains used to host the Kelihos botnet,' blogged Richard Domingues Boscovich, Senior Attorney for Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit. 'Rather, the controllers of the Kelihos botnet leveraged the subdomain services offered by Mr. Piatti's cz.cc domain.' In regards to Kelihos, Boscovich said Microsoft is continuing its legal fight against the 22 'John Does' listed as co-defendants in the lawsuit."
Re:No apology then (Score:2, Informative)
I'ts not a false accusation. The standards for malicious prosecution are actually quite high, and would require evidence of either severe incompetence or willful and reckless disregard for the truth.
However, since the botnet was controlled through their hosting services, it'll be a case of an acceptable interpretation of the information they had, and not punished.
Microsoft's apology probably goes something like this "Hey, sorry you weren't actually doing it yourselves, but just foolishly sold your services to them which they used to cause severe damage to lots of people, gee, I hope they don't sue you for negligence or anything."