Ending speculation about whether it was shifting to a paid model, Microsoft said on Tuesday that it will provide customers with its new anti-spyware software for free. The pledge, made by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates during his keynote speech kicking off the RSA Conference 2005, comes after the company had been testing its AntiSpyware application–technology it acquired with its purchase of security software maker Giant Software.

A Louisiana man has pleaded guilty to sending rigged emails that caused some computers to dial the 911 emergency services number, prosecutors said on Monday. David Jeansonne, 44, admitted to sending emails to about 20 subscribers of Microsoft’s WebTV, a television Internet service since renamed MSN TV. An attachment to the email rewrote the user’s access WebTV number to 911, so that the next time the service was used, calls to WebTV in Santa Clara were diverted.

A wife who installed spyware on her husband’s computer to secretly record evidence of an extramarital affair violated state law, a Florida court ruled Friday. The Florida Appeals Court, Fifth District said that Beverly Ann O’Brien "illegally obtained" records of husband James’ online conversations with another woman as the two played Yahoo Dominoes together.

Microsoft has denied threatening to take jobs away from Denmark if the Danish government opposed a controversial European Union directive involving patents and software. Danish financial newspaper Borsen reported that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told the Danish prime minister that he would move all 800 jobs at Navision, a Danish company acquired by Microsoft in 2002, to the United States unless the EU adopted the computer-implemented inventions directive.

Click fraud is a scam that threatens to squelch the online advertising boom that has been enriching Google, Yahoo, and their many business partners. The ruse has different twists, but the end result is usually the same: Merchants are billed for fruitless traffic generated by someone who repeatedly clicks on an advertiser’s Web link with no intention of ever buying anything.

Ten instant messaging worms and their variants have spread over America Online, ICQ and MSN networks in the first six weeks of 2005 according to Akonix Systems. Akonix said the growth of malicious attacks targeting IM users will continue through the year, and enterprises should educate their employees about virus attacks and spam that spread via IM. Viruses and spam over instant messaging are on the rise, and companies fear the problem may mushroom the way it did via email.

Microsoft announced a partnership with phone maker Flextronics to market a new cell phone platform running Windows Mobile to phone makers and service providers. The two companies said they have jointly developed a new phone platform called Peabody–a blueprint that cell providers can customize and which is designed to cut production costs. Peabody runs on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), the data delivery arm of GSM networks.

Reversing a longstanding Microsoft policy, Bill Gates said Tuesday that the company will ship an update to its browser separately from the next major version of Windows. A beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 7 will debut this summer, Microsoft’s chairman and chief software architect said in a keynote address at the RSA Conference 2005 here. The company had said that it would not ship a new IE version before the next major update to Windows, code-named Longhorn, arrives next year.

Nokia announced a long-term agreement to use longtime rival Microsoft’s technology to help transfer music between cell phones and computers. At the ongoing 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, Microsoft and Nokia said they plan to collaborate to help wireless customers use a service debuted by Nokia and digital-media specialist Loudeye. Nokia, in turn, will support Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio, Windows Media Digital Rights Management and Media Transfer Protocol software in its handsets.

Security specialist McAfee said Monday that it will start updating its virus-matching database every day, and that it will launch a customizable Web site that offers incident and threat information. Starting Feb. 24, the company will move from weekly updates of its virus definition data files, or DATs, to daily updates, said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of the antivirus emergency response team for the company. DATS make up the dictionary of viruses that McAfee’s software recognizes.