The Tuesday announcement coincided with the annual German Anti-Spam Summit where Tim Cranton, Microsoft's associate general counsel, said the online threat differs from those that try to exploit software code or attack computers. "Lottery scammers prey not on software, but on the hope of their victims – and with scams that can be so creative and plausible, Internet users simply don’t know who they can believe," he said. International collaboration is necessary because Web shysters typically operate out of several countries at the same time and are truly global in reach, Microsoft said.