NEW YORK, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Pfizer and Microsoft Corp. have sued two international pharmacy Web sites alleging they advertised and sold illegal versions of the impotence drug Viagra.
The two companies conducted a seven-month investigation before Pfizer filed suit against CanadianPharmacy, cndpharmacy.com, and E-Pharmacy Direct, myepharmacydirect.com, and Microsoft sued spammers advertising those Web sites.
Microsoft also filed three law suits against spammers that advertise other online pharmacies, such as Discount RX, Virtual RX and EzyDrugStore.com. The software giant claimed the spammers sent hundreds of millions of e-mail messages to Microsoft's MSN Hotmail customers within the past year in violation of the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and other state and federal laws.
The Pfizer and Microsoft suits allege consumers ordered drugs advertised as Viagra or illegal generics on Web sites advertised by spam. The orders were received on computers in New York, sent to a call center in Canada and then on to India for processing. The companies said the orders were filled with illegal, unregulated and unapproved products that were shipped to the United States and delivered by an airfreight forwarding company based in the United States.
