AOL sues spammers
 

America Online sues spammers


By Jim Hu
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 15, 2003, 8:41 AM PT


America Online on Tuesday said it is filing five lawsuits against individuals and companies that are allegedly purveying bulk unsolicited e-mail, or spam, to its members.

The lawsuits, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, seek at least $10 million in total damages along with court orders to immediately stop the alleged practices.

Spam, one of the most reviled by-products of the Net, creates headaches for computer users and for Internet companies such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo and EarthLink that offer e-mail as part of their services. Subscribers have routinely criticized AOL for the proliferation of unwanted e-mail in their in-boxes, causing the company to take a litigious policy towards alleged spammers.


AOL has taken spammers to court and has won lawsuits that resulted in monetary fines and a discontinuation of its practices. In April 2002, AOL won an injunction along with a "significant" monetary settlement against Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Netvision Audiotext.

Microsoft has also taken the legal route by suing alleged spammers on behalf of its popular free e-mail service Hotmail. In February, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against undisclosed defendants accused of employing a "dictionary attack," where a computer program goes through dictionary entries to fish out Hotmail account passwords.

The problem has also alerted federal lawmakers to craft policy to punish spammers. Last week, a pair of U.S. senators reintroduced a bill, called the CAN-SPAM Act, that would make it a federal offense to send spam using false return e-mail addresses. AOL supports the bill.

The defendants named in AOL's latest round of lawsuits are alleged to have engaged in fraudulent and misleading e-mails peddling pornography, software products, college degrees, male organ growth, steroids and mortgage leads. Some defendants are named; others are so-called John Does.

AOL said the defendants allegedly sent 1 billion e-mails that resulted in 8 million complaints among its members.

http://news.com.com/2100-1032-996899.html?tag=fd_top

so wait, aolers are getting spammed, and it's aol who gets the 10mil?

it's that humorous! aol spams their customers and non customers more then anyone else out there so are they going to sue themselves and give themselves the settlement if it comes to pass? :1orglaugh

I have an aol account for various purposes and I check the email like once per week.

I just added a new AOL account March 15th for one of the sites and OMFG, today I must have had over 50 spams.

Most of which are AOL related. Buy music, get insurance, only one pornsite, everything else was streamline

I never even used that email yet, its not on any site yet, nothing
gee gee gee

:321GFY

i HATE spam bu I HATE the AUTO INSTALL CRAP that AOL keeps trying to SHOVE on me JUST AS MUCH.

SOMEONE should sue those BASTARDS at AOL for that as well.

they have to pay for the email servers that get the constant stream of spam.

As far as spamming goes. AOL is beyond repair. They lost the battle against spammers a long time ago and just keep going downhill. Dont believe me, go into any public chat room on AOL for an hour, and after count how many spam emails and instant messages you've accumulated. Well into the dozens.

I started a post on this eairler today. It was on the news today, its not just aol, congress has passed new laws, there will be Major Jail time for convicted spammers, and well as very Heavy monetary fines.....

spam is bad guys! its a nono

can we sue them for constantly sending us their crap cds?

When did congress pass these laws? As far as I know there's only a bill floating around. No federal laws yet.

free coasters

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh