Microsoft also claims that Outlook.com will have a strong security solution that could rival or surpass in quality the current security filters on Google.

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Using a large database of known suspicious or bad source IP addresses, even URLs, has made dramatic improvements to spam filters and web security gateways.

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Google removed the offending pages from the search engine's index Tuesday and added them to a malware blacklist that the company has been assembling since it began incorporating security measures in its search filters a year and a half ago.

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With new filters, the IRS discovered 4.1 million "problems" with Social Security numbers--an increase of more than 3 million from the year before.

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Yet ironically, as Microsoft slowly improves the security of its products by, for instance, incorporating firewall technology, anti-virus systems and spam filters its actions increasingly start to resemble those that, in the past, have got the firm into trouble with regulators.

ECONOMIST: Microsoft