Featured stories updated: Feb 9, 2003
Recent stories updated daily when possible

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Recent Stories on the Wire
 

Featured Stories...
CNET News.com:
Net's New Year resolution: Outlaw spam
Friday, January 3, 2003
Full story

Rising angst over junk e-mail has the majority of the Internet population in favor of outlawing it, a new study shows.

Web users are more annoyed than ever by the continuous flood of unsolicited bulk e-mail sent to in-boxes every day; 80 percent of Internet users surveyed said they are "very annoyed" by spam, compared with only 49 percent who responded similarly two-and-a-half years ago, according to the latest Harris Poll. As a result of their irritation, an estimated 74 percent are proponents of making bulk e-mail illegal, while only 12 percent are opposed to banning it.

Spam has grown by gigantic proportions in the last year.

. . .

Read the full story...


CNET News.com:
AOL awarded millions in spam case
Monday, December 16, 2002
Full story

A Virginia federal court awarded America Online nearly $7 million in damages as part of the Internet service providers' legal victory over a junk e-mail operation, AOL said Monday.

The award--AOL's largest compensation to date in its legal tussles with junk mailers--marks the company's second triumph over the marketer CN Productions and its owner Jay Nelson.

. . .

The company said the legal decision should send a warning to junk e-mailers.

"This is an important legal victory in the fight against spam," Randall Boe, AOL general counsel, said in a statement. "It sends a clear, distinct message to spammers: AOL is prepared to use all of the legal and technological tools available to shut down spammers."

Read the full story...


CNN / TechWeb News / InformationWeek:
Spam may overtake e-mail in 2003
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Full story

(TechWeb) -- A message-filtering service warned this week that spam will exceed legitimate e-mail traffic by July. MessageLabs says e-mail threats, including viruses and spam, are increasing at an "alarming rate."

MessageLabs says that about 30 percent of all e-mail sent in November was spam, a figure that's actually smaller than other recent estimates.

The spam rate is increasing rapidly; overall for the year, only one in 12 messages was spam. Spam will likely peak in July and decline through the rest of 2003, although it will continue to make up the bulk of e-mail next year.

. . .

Read the full story...


Infoworld (Reuters):
'Spam' Likely to Clutter E-Mail for Some Time
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
Full story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sick of being inundated with get-rich-quick schemes and Viagra ads in your e-mail? Well, get used to it because, despite concerted efforts to fight it, "spam" is expected to get worse before it gets better, analysts say.

The average American will get more than 2,200 spam, or unsolicited bulk e-mail, messages this year and 3,600 by 2007, Jupiter Research forecasts.

. . .

Brightmail said its recent data shows that spam has gone up from 8 percent of all Internet e-mail to about 40 percent.

. . .

Read the full story...


INTERNETNEWS.COM:
Verizon Settles with Spammer
[Alan Ralsky and company must pay damages and stop spamming via Verizon]
Monday, October 28, 2002
Full story

Verizon ... unit Verizon Online announced Monday it settled its anti-spam lawsuit against a Detroit-based commercial e-mail firm.

Verizon cited both federal law and Virginia state law when it sued Additional Benefits, and its owner, Alan Ralsky, in federal court in Virginia in March 2001. Verizon said Additional Benefits, in late 2000, had allegedly flooded the inboxes of its subscribers with unsolicited commercial e-mail advertising diet pills, online gambling, credit repair tools, new car buying services, computer programs and home-based business opportunities.

Virginia's law allows for statutory damages of as much as $10 per illegal e-mail or $25,000 for every day a spam message is transmitted. That amount is in addition to attorneys' fees and costs of the lawsuit.

Under the terms of the settlement, Ralsky and Additional Benefits will pay unspecified damages to Verizon. They have also agreed to an injunction barring them from transmitting unsolicited bulk e-mail through Verizon's network or to its subscribers.

. . .

Read the full story...


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER:
Spammer must pay $98,000
Oregon man violated state law on unsolicited e-mails
Saturday, October 19, 2002
Full story

A prolific e-mailer was ordered yesterday to pay more than $98,000 for flooding Washington computers several years ago with dubious offers to make money through the Internet.

A King County Superior Court judge last month found that Jason Heckel of Salem, Ore., violated the state's law against sending misleading and unsolicited commercial e-mail that could not be traced.

Yesterday, Judge Douglass North fined the 28-year-old Heckel the maximum penalty, $2,000, for one violation of the rule. The rest of the penalty is for state's attorneys' fees and court costs. The total is $98,197.74.

The case, originally filed in 1998 after the state's anti-spam law took effect, was the first of its kind in the country. Similarly, yesterday's fine, the first of its kind, may set a standard for other cases pending against senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail.

. . .

Read the full story...


BBC NEWS:
Spam poses threat to privacy
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Full story

If you thought the problem of junk e-mail was bad enough now then it is about to get a whole lot worse.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," said Satish Ramachandran, chief executive of Mirapoint, a company which provides software to deal with the menace of unwanted commercial e-mails.

One of the first casualties of the fight against spam in the workplace would be privacy, said Mr Ramachandran.

"Privacy is going to go and people will just have to get used to it."

. . .

For the lucky few, the workplace is still a relatively spam-free zone, but filtering firm MessageLabs reports that the problem is on the rise with one in seven business e-mails now identified as spam.

MessageLabs estimates that around 10% of the working day is spent dealing with unsolicited e-mail, which in turn is having a big impact on business productivity. [emphasis mine —ed.]

The answer, according to Mr Ramachandran, will be more surveillance in the workplace and even tighter controls on what goes through the corporate e-mail network.

. . .

Read the full story...


NEW YORK POST:
New York Moves to Can the Spam
Sunday, September 29, 2002
Full story (Free abstract preview; $ full archived story)

New York state has declared war against those annoying junk e-mails clogging up your Internet mailbox.

Prosecutors, armed with millions of unsolicited e-mails, will go to court in Manhattan tomorrow in a case the state Attorney General's Office calls "a shot across the bow" of spammers - those firing off all that junk e-mail known as "spam."

Oral arguments are scheduled to begin tomorrow in a case against Monsterhut, a Niagara Falls-based marketer run by principals Todd Pelow and Gary Hartl, accused last May of sending 500 million unsolicited e-mails on behalf of clients ranging from giftbaskets.com to The New York Times.

If convicted, Monsterhut could face $400,000 in fines and be banned from operating in the state again.

It would be the first time an e-mail generator has been busted in New York for spamming - a watershed case, said Assistant Attorney General Stephen Kline.

. . .

Brightmail, a spam-filtering service, said it blocked 5 million e-mail "attacks" last month, up from about 1 million a year ago. Thirty-five percent of the 2.3 billion e-mails Brightmail monitors a month is now spam.

. . .

Read the full story...


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER:
State wins case against deceptive spammer
Saturday, September 14, 2002
Full story

Washington, the first state to take a legal stand against sending misleading, unwanted e-mail, won its first case yesterday, against a prolific spammer who flooded the state's computers with advertising several years ago.

A King County Superior Court judge declared a summary judgment against Jason Heckel, a Salem, Ore., businessman, finding that he violated the state's anti-spam law. The judge ruled that a civil trial, which was weeks away, wouldn't be needed because the state had proved its case.

. . .

"This is a great victory for Washington consumers," Attorney General Christine Gregoire said yesterday. "Deceptive e-mails are more than just a nuisance, they rob consumers and businesses of money and time."

. . .

Heckel's attorney, Dale Crandall, said that his client would appeal.

"It is not a settled issue yet whether states will be allowed to do this," Crandall said.

Others, however, disagree.

By winning yesterday's case, Washington has become the first state to test its anti-spam law through the courts and finally win a judgment, said John Mozena of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, an Internet-based advocacy group of anti-spam organizations around the world.

"Hopefully, it will dissuade spammers from sending their messages to Washington state residents," Mozena said, adding that other states, such as California, are now testing their anti-spam laws in the courts.

. . .

Read the full story...


PCWORLD.COM:
Spam, Inc.
In 2002, spam is not just a scourge, it's big business. Our investigator reveals who's behind the assault on your in-box and why stemming the tide won't be easy.

June 20, 2002
Full story

. . .
We are in the midst of a spam epidemic. Depending on which survey you read, anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of e-mail messages consist of advertisements for miracle cures, financial scams, porn site come-ons, and other unsolicited commercial messages. According to e-mail filter vendor Brightmail, the number of spam attacks has risen by more than 500 percent since March 2001.

And in the next few years, the situation is going to get much, much worse. A study released last fall by Jupiter Media Metrix predicts that by 2006 a typical consumer can expect to receive nearly 1500 servings of spam annually--double the number that the average user gets today.

The time and data involved take an economic toll. Spam costs businesses worldwide some $8 billion to $10 billion per year in bandwidth charges alone, according to estimates by the European Union.

So why does spam remain a thriving business? I decided to find out--and I discovered that the only things you need to get started are a credit card, a computer, and an Internet connection.

Read the full story..


PAETEC.COM:
Paetec wins court case against Monsterhut
Monsterhut.com was disconnected on May 3, 2002

May 3, 2002
Full story: http://litigation.paetec.net/ — SITE TAKEN DOWN?

[It's about time. The original court decision was a huge mistake. Finally, the court has confirmed that ISPs have the right to terminate spammers. My personal thanks to all of Monsterhut's spam victims who submitted affidavits in this case. —BW]

On May 3, 2002, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial
Department, handed down a Memorandum and Order in favor of PaeTec Communications, reversing the
August 27, 2001 orders from the trial court, and granted PaeTec's cross motion for summary judgment.

PaeTec disconnected Monsterhut's Internet connection on May 3, 2002.

The full Memorandum and Order may be viewed HERE. [PDF file]

All Monsterhut Case Documents.


COMPUTERWORLD.COM:
AOL Suit Closes a Spammer's Loophole
April 05, 2002
Full story

The settlement that America Online Inc. extracted from a pair of Florida men this week may have closed a loophole used by spammers to flood e-mail in-boxes with junk mail.

On Wednesday, Dulles, Va.-based AOL announced the details of a settlement against John J. Bennett Jr., Joseph B. Elkind and their company, Netvision Audiotext Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (see story). In the settlement, AOL dictated a list of conditions to the men, including requiring them to tell AOL of any other businesses that they might start in the future.
. . .
[Jason Catlett, President of N.J.-based Junkbusters Corp.] said AOL created a blueprint for how to go after a particular ruse that many spammers use. It holds companies that recruit others to do their spamming for them responsible for the havoc those spammers wreak on users' e-mail in-boxes.

Read the full story...


NEWS.CNET.COM:
Is your e-mail watching you?
Spammers link specific addresses to surfing behavior

April 4, 2002
Full story

Watch out — the spam choking your e-mail in-box may be loaded with software that lets marketers track your moves online, and you may not even be aware that you've been bugged.

WEB SITES HAVE long planted bits of code called "cookies" on consumers' hard drives to tailor Internet pages for returning visitors and better target ads. Now, enhanced messages that share the look and feel of Web pages are being used to deliver the same bits of code through e-mail, in many cases without regard for safeguards that have been developed to protect consumer privacy on the Web.

"All of the security and privacy issues on the Web now relate to e-mail," said Adam Shostack, director of technology at Zero-Knowledge Systems, a Montreal-based privacy and security company. "The shame about this behavior is that it's going on surreptitiously and people are not given an obvious way to opt out.".
. . .
Christine Frye, chief privacy officer of Experian's e-marketing services unit, said the company has started working with customers to educate them on updating their privacy policies to include e-mail tracking. So far, "they've been very receptive to that," she said. She would not name any Experian customers.

Read the full story...


CNET NEWS.COM:
Spammers lose in small-claims court
March 25, 2002, 4:50 PM PT
Full story

Free-speech group Peacefire.org has won a legal round in its fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam law.

The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line.

Washington's tough anti-spam law bans such deceptive e-mail. Enacted four years ago, the law is one of the nation's first measures that sets standards for junk e-mailers and levies stiff fines for violators. In October, the Supreme Court refused to review a constitutional challenge to Washington's law.

Read the full story...

-----------------

CM Note: Red Moss Media is AKA FunnyMoney.com, AKA lendbetter.com


Newsbytes:
Spammer Sues E-mail List Providers

March 20, 2002, 7:28 AM CST
Full story

An e-mail marketing firm on Tuesday said it has filed lawsuits against two e-mail list providers, alleging the lists it bought from the companies were full of non-existent addresses and people who hadn't asked to receive commercial marketing messages.

Kansas City, Mo.-based direct marketing firm Virtumundo is seeking damages from Mindset Interactive Inc. and Inurv Inc., alleging the two companies "misrepresented" the nature of consumer data which Virtumundo purchased.

Virtumundo also said it intends to be more careful about the data it purchases from third-party list providers in the future.
The company said it used the Mindset Interactive and Inurv lists to send messages to thousands of e-mail account holders. It claims the companies said the data were collected with the consent of the owners and could be used for direct marketing.
. . .
According to published reports, Virtumundo was sued in November by DoubleClick. The Internet ad giant claimed it was owed more than $400,000 for e-mail marketing campaigns it performed for Virtumundo. Virtumundo reportedly said it will file a counterclaim against DoubleClick alleging breach of contract.

Read the full story...


List-News.com:
Emailer Sued by Law Firm for Spam Bombardment

March 14, 2002, 1:00pm CST
Full Story

Email marketer Etracks.com, is being sued by a law firm that claims the Belmont, Calif., high-volume emailer sent more than 6,500 unsolicited commercial email advertisements to its email addresses after the firm told it to stop.

Morrison & Foerster LLP, which says it is the largest law firm in California, filed suit against Etracks for violating two California anti-spam statutes.

Under one law, California firms can't use an electronic service provider, such as Morrison & Foerster, to send unsolicited commercial email to its users if the provider's policies prohibit it. The complaint also alleges that Etracks did not add "ADV:" or "ADV:ADLT" to its subject lines or include a toll-free telephone number or valid return address, as another law requires.

Read the Full Story...

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