Judge Dismisses AOL Spam Lawsuit
 

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031231S0004

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by America Online (AOL) against a group of Floridians the company accused of conspiring to spam its users, lawyers for the defendants announced late Tuesday.

The case, which was dismissed last week by Chief Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, centered around claims by AOL that a number of Florida-based computer technicians conspired with others to send bulk e-mail through AOL's system, said lawyers with the Virginia-based firm Albo & Oblon in a statement.

Hilton ruled AOL had failed to demonstrate that ?Virginia had jurisdiction over the Florida defendants simply because AOL's business resides in Virginia and the alleged bulk emails had gone through Virginia,? said Albo & Oblon.

In the ruling, Hilton also said that asserting jurisdiction over the defendants would violate their right to due process, and that merely enabling someone to transmit material over the Internet was insufficient to permit such jurisdiction.

In a statement, AOL said the decision was based on a ?mere technicality,? and left open the option to resubmit the lawsuit -- first filed in April, 2003 -- in Virginia, or file in Florida.

AOL has been aggressively pursuing spammers, which it says flood its network with over two billion messages per day, in court. It has also been instrumental in getting tough anti-spam laws passed in its home state of Virginia, and has been beefing up its anti-spam filtering tools for its 35 million users.

In April, AOL filed five lawsuits against spammers in Florida, Washington state, and Maryland who it claimed had repeatedly sent large numbers of junk mail messages -- shilling everything from health care products and software to college degrees and pornography -- using techniques designed to circumvent the online service's filtering systems.

sorry, I'm bored today... my email is down and I'm waiting for it to come up so I can finish my work that I'm so behind on.. anyone that's waiting for me to get with them don't worry I'm here

Fuck AOL

Matt0, great find.

this ruling may have important implications for current out-of-california defendants in the acacia issue.

if anyone knows these defendants this thread should be forwarded to them IMMEDIATELY so their legal advisers can review it.

in my view the key phrase is:

"In the ruling, Hilton also said that asserting jurisdiction over the defendants would violate their right to due process, and that merely enabling someone to transmit material over the Internet was insufficient to permit such jurisdiction."

you have what seems like a valid point there....

thats good news

Yes we were very lucky here.

My girlfriend Paris says this is the last time Uncle Claude is gonna help me out. She told me last night, "Either you stop spamming AOL or I am outta here"

I thought about it long and hard and I realized she is 100% correct. I start at Wendy's on Monday. :)

AOL are the fuckin spammers, mother fuckers used to send me their shitty fuckin CD every fuckin month... Big part of AOL success they spam the shit out of people also...:321GFY

if you read the legal brief on the most recent lawsuits, acacia is asserting that defendant "infringers" caused their content to be made available to the specific jurisdiction of california where the plantiff is located, and because of that, acacia had a cause of action.


it seems to me, that this judge has just blown that out of the water.


it sets precedent.


AND IT IS VERY FUCKING IMPORTANT TO THE ACACIA CASE RIGHT NOW!

imho.

AOL cannot get spammers :Graucho

fuck aol
fuck acacia
:321GFY

libertad !

for just a second forget "spammers".


look at the big picture.


this may be the silver bullet to defeat acacia.

Saw this last night, made me smile :glugglug

WTF I thought AOL was a pay for spam ISP... I mean you log on and get 2 or 3 messages trying to sell you something... I can't see why anyone would pay for their service

AOL keep trying... :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Wow!:BangBang:

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is apples and oranges.

The AOL case involved state law.

The Acacia case involves FEDERAL patent law.

Jurisdiction issues such as this have no effect on the Acacia case.

"a FEDERAL judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by America Online (AOL) against a group of Floridians the company accused of conspiring to spam its users, lawyers for the defendants announced late Tuesday."

JMM, i regard you as one of the sharpest operators in this biz.

i know you are close to this issue, please evaluate it again.

i'm not saying that this ruling is spot-on applicable to the acacia case, i'm saying that it may throw a monkey wrench into the acacia tactic of trying to sue defendants outside of california because surfers can reach their websites in california.

Thanks for the kind words. :)

Here is the difference.

AOL, a Virginia company, was trying to sue residents of Florida, for violating a VIRGINIA state law. You are allowed to sue people in FEDERAL court for violations of state law.

In the Acacia case, Acacia is suing companies in Federal court for violation of Federal law. Jurisdictional issues, such as the one raised in the AOL case, don't apply.

Whether your servers, or customers, or whatever, pass through California, doesn't matter, that is not at issue. Acacia is claiming federal patent infringement. The suits were filed in Federal court in the court closest to where Acacia's corporate office is. Unfortunately, the court system does not place the burden on the plaintiff to sue each defendant in the federal court closest to where they live or do business. That is one of the reasons that we have a federal court system.

Yea thats some goood news. :thumbsup

good essplination

Its a personal Jurisdiction question. If they file it where the defendants reside the problem would be fixed.

Good news. Too much spam hysteria. What the fuck.