Microsoft spam

I made the mistake of using my primary e-mail address as my login for MSN messenger. I've recently started getting "valuable offers" from Microsoft's various partners even though I never opted in to these things. So I went to the website, logged in, and unchecked all the various "communication preferences" they list, only to find that it would not save the page in Firefox. So I e-mailed them to complain about the incompatibility. I wasn't expecting a useful response, but I instead got a form letter asking me reply with the exact same information I'd provided on their website's form.

I then get another response, saying this:

Thank you for writing back to Windows Live Technical Support. My name is Riza and based on your message, you are unable to unsubscribe from any communications with Microsoft. I value the importance of your concern and I am here to assist you. Shira, for us to further investigate your issue, please write back with the sample of the e-mail you have received from Microsoft with the full headers of the source's e-mail, which is usually in a form similar to abuse@[implicated domain].com.

Now, how hard is it to unsubscribe someone from a mailing list that they never signed up for? Getting out of spam normally isn't even this hard, since it's a simple matter of marking a couple messages as spam to ensure that I never have to see them again. Of course, the suggestion that I respond to abuse@microsoft.com is rather absurd on its own; I'm already using the forms they provide on their website to complain about this. So, instead of forwarding any messages, I replied with this:

Or you can just unsubscribe me from your mailings and leave it at that. I've already deleted all the unsolicited e-mail I've received; why would I save something I never wanted in the first place? You are making it unreasonably difficult to unsubscribe.

They responded immediately to that! With this fantastically unhelpful message:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

LV_ID.WNLV.WW.00.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com

Technical details of permanent failure:

PERM_FAILURE: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the
recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further
information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned
was: 550 550 5.7.1 <Your e-mail was rejected by an anti-spam content filter on
gateway (205.248.106.32). Reasons for rejection may be: obscene language, graphics,
or spam-like characteristics. Removing these may let the e-mail through the filter.>
(state 18).

So not only do they refuse to allow you to unsubscribe without jumping through hoops (or, more likely, using Internet explorer), they don't even allow incoming mail when someone has a complaint. It's no wonder that a large number people simply hate Microsoft; I'm quickly becoming one of them. I was able to make the unsubscribe page work in Opera, so this shouldn't be a problem again; if I get any more "partner offers" from Microsoft, I'll be closing my MSN account and telling anyone who contacts me there to use something that doesn't suck.