Manitoba judge sides with Microsoft in locked email account case

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This article was published 25/03/2022 (1460 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba man has lost his court case — not to mention his emails.

The Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench has ruled in favour of software giant Microsoft Corp. in an unusual small claim.

The claimant, Michael Kalo, filed to have the matter heard after he was locked out of his Hotmail email account in 2019 — one he had set up in 2003, which he said stored correspondence and other information that covered all aspects of his life.

Microsoft Corp. locked Kalo out of the account for violating the service agreement, after receiving a complaint spam had been sent to various other email accounts on or around Dec. 16, 2019, Queen’s Bench Justice Vic Toews wrote in his March 16 decision.

However, an in-house investigation determined the account could have been reopened, subject to the aggrieved claimant taking steps to verify his ownership of the account, Microsoft senior escalation engineer (consumer) Nicholas Sanchez testified.

Another Microsoft employee, David Los, testified once a Hotmail account is closed, any information on it can’t be retrieved after 60 days.

Kalo said he made numerous attempts to regain access to the account, but Microsoft was unresponsive or any responses that were provided were confusing or irrelevant, Toews wrote in his decision.

Kalo also claimed losing access to the account brought chaos to all aspects of his life, resulting in a monetary loss of $15,000 — the statutory limit that a court sitting on a small claims matter in Manitoba can order.

However, Microsoft’s witnesses testified the claimant was asked to follow the standard process to have the account unlocked. Microsoft argued Kalo failed to follow the necessary steps to verify his identity, and after he did not respond after seven days, the case was set as inactive.

Toews issued his decision March 16, dismissing the claim and fixing costs of $250 in favour of Microsoft.

“Although he claims a right to the use of the system owned and operated by Microsoft, he appears to deny the existence of a contractual relationship with Microsoft,” Toews wrote, noting Kalo had agreed to the terms regardless of whether he read them in order to set up the account.

The judge also said it is difficult not to sympathize with Kalo over the loss of 16 years of information — even if no legal shortcomings can be attributed to Microsoft.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera