STORM2K

AOL Files Lawsuits Against Spammers
Internet Provider Wants $10M In Damages

POSTED: 12:43 p.m. EDT April 15, 2003

America Online is trying to crack down on spammers, people who send unsolicited e-mails.

AOL has filed five federal lawsuits targeting spammers it accuses of sending around 1 billion junk e-mail messages, promoting everything from mortgages to steroids to stuff.

The case stems from about 8 million individual spam complaints from subscribers, most of whom used a feature AOL introduced to report spam. In March, AOL reported that it had blocked 1 billion unwanted messages in one day.


The lawsuits seek damages of more than $10 million, plus an end to the messages.

Most of the defendants are listed as "John Doe," meaning AOL couldn't determine their identities. But filing the suits gives AOL more authority to subpoena service providers and others to try to track down the spammers.

A Washington state man and a Maryland man are among the individuals named in the lawsuits. Their numbers are unlisted, and records for their domain names have false phone numbers.

AOL is also trying to identify spammers who use residential broadband services like Comcast and Road Runner

Go get'em!

Wow! This is the best news i have seen yet involving the internet.....Its about time.

I love it!! I do not use AOL but....here's to ya!! :38:

Great news!!!! One other new feature they have is blocking pop ups also.
Pop ups are so aggravating. Ughh!

Still couldnt pay me to use aol.. LOL Sorry American onliners

I used to have America Online. Most people seem to start their online experience with AOL. I have always heard negative things about the ISP. It gets someone online, usually. I always had trouble staying online and it took me awhile to get back on, but there always seems to be more. I did get a lot of junk e-mail, but of course deleted it all.

Hopefully this will make it more enjoyable to use.

Well that's pretty good news ...
Now about all those AOL CD-ROMS they have in Burger King, and the ones that come in the mail for 1045 hrs free for 45 days? HMMM....

I get 3-4 AOL CD's a month in the mail. Maybe I can sue them for spam mail LOL

This is great news. Hopefully others will do the same. Hotmail for example.

Interesting, Burger King has AOL CDs available. My local supermarket has them and I know that Circuit City and a few other stores have them as well.

I wish MSN would do something about the junk mail entering my Hotmail account. I had 143 just this morning mainly stuff and mortgage junk. They probably won't though, they are probably the ones that are selling email addresses to those bunch of spammers.

But for AOL users, I am happy to hear they are doing something about that problem.

Some of those 8 million spam complaints were mine hehehehehe 90 percent of my emails were sent in as a complaint in the last couple of months, I have noticed a slow down with spam already

YIPPIEE. Even though I am not an AOL user, I really do HATE spam. Hopefully this action by AOL will pave the way for others.

As far as pop up's go. I downloaded a free pop up blocker tool. It really works wonders, and is very easy to use. you just push the Ctrl button if you wish to see the Pop-up, otherwise it just deletes them. Here is the link http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html

Me too Amanzi... except my pop up blocker is called "PopUpCop" It also blocks animations too. Those can be a pain too. When I check my local forecast at the weather channel those animations would cover my entire screen. But no more.

When I had AOL I went through a short period of time when I would forward all spam to the appropriate "AOL e-mail address." It got old, so I just decided to delete basically all the mail I ever receieved during my 44 months (to the day) with them... Monday March 1st, 1999 to October 31st, 2002.

For the record, my AOL account was cancelled in early to mid November.

AOL is a bad ISP. They are one of he worst spam offenders, and I hope the spammers have to pay.

Go Get Em!