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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. 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. Read the full story... CNN / TechWeb News / InformationWeek: Spam may overtake e-mail in 2003 Thursday, December 12, 2002 Full story (TechWeb 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. . . . 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. 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. . . . 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 . . . 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 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. 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.". 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. ----------------- 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. List-News.com: 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. All Contents of this Website are © Copyright 2002-2003, Robert M. West, All Rights Reserved. More Legal Info |