AOL Sues Five Spam Companies

sugapablo writes "AOL has filed lawsuits against five spamming companies, seeking damages in the millions for unwanted email. As the AP reports, AOL hasn't actually figured out who all the defendants are though, filing the lawuits against some "John Does" and attempting to "subpoena service providers and others to try to track down the spammers"."

Comments

AOL should sue themselves

[wiggys]

So can I sue AOL for spamming me with all those frigging CDs?

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Andy Tanenbaum]

No joke. At least those damn AOL floppies could be overwritten and put to use. AOL could have the decency to spam with CD-RW discs.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[inaeldi]

Haven't you ever put an AOL CD in the microwave? I get as many of those CDs as I can just for that purpose.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[island_earth]

So can I sue AOL for spamming me with all those frigging CDs?

That depends. Does AOL make you pay shipping and handling for those CDs? No? Then it's not spam.

Direct marketing (i.e., junk mail, paid by the sender) may be odious, but it's a different issue from spam (essentially free to the sender, burden to pay on the rest of us, including AOL). AOL is not really being hypocritical by fighting one and using the other, no matter how funny it may seem to claim otherwise.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[jellomizer]

Well you can use them as costers. Put your drink on them and they make sure the finish on your table stays good.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[DrPepper]

It takes time for me to read through my mail, and time is money - especially if you get paid on results and not on hours spent. Of course it doesn't take me long to sift through mail discarding all the AOL CD's, but there is still a cost. It also costs to have them carted away once they are in the trash.

I'll stick with the more accepted definition of spam - direct mailings which you have not asked to receive. There are plenty of other more acceptable ways to advertise a product. Marketing droids just need to be a bit more innovative about the methods they use.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[quick9vb]

I disagree, I do not believe it is free to the sender. I still have to waste my time going through my mail and throwing away the junk mail. I probably don't get more than 2 or 3 pieces of real mail per week, but sure enough my mailbox is full of crap every other day.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Wah wah wah. Hire a secretary, go into hiding so nobody knows where you live, or live with it.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[EasyTarget]

And don't forget that your trash disposal is paid for by taxes, and just like spam the individual cost of disposal per item is tiny, but given the overall amount of trash that unsolicited mail generates, this adds up to a significant amount in the long term. The costs of this are spread across the whole community, even those who are lucky enough not to be targeted by advertisers very much still have to pay a share of this disposal 'stealth cost'.

And since the CD's at least probably end up in a land-fill your great-great grandchildren may still be paying a price (of sorts) in a hundred years.

Is it just me who thinks this is all screwed up?

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[funkman]

But I do have to pay the garbage man based on the amount of garbage I throw away. More garbage==more money I must spend.

I enjoy this payment scheme since it encourages recycling and more thought on how much stuff we do consume. I hate it because I pay for all the junk mail. That's why I like credit card companies which provide a postage paid envelope so I can send their offerings back to them.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[liam193]

I agree with the idea that the CDs cost the receiver money. In fact, all junk mail and advertisements do. The end result of anything that gets shipped to my house is wasted money in garbage collection. Certainly one CD doesn't have a significant effect on my garbage. However, when you add up all the groups that send something for which I in no way asked or implied I might want, you have a cost that is incurred by the receiver to get rid of the material that was never requested. I do believe that is the most basic definition of SPAM.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[island_earth]

Recall that I never said that junk mail was good; just that it's different enough that AOL can fight spam and send CDs without being hypocrites.

Another key difference: although you shouldn't have to opt-out of junk mail, you can, and it mostly works. I contact the Direct Marketing Association every few years to tell their members to cut it out, and the only junk mail I get for the most part is crap my family actually requests. I haven't seen an AOL CD in years, to be honest.

Junk mail sucks, and I'd love to see it abolished, but it follows some rules we can work with, if we bother to. Spam is an uncontrolled mess, and needs to be slapped down hard. AOL isn't being hypocritical by doing that.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[drunk_as_in_beer]

I personally like the tin cases they have been sending the CD's in lately. The AOL CD goes directly into the trash, and I fill the tin up with CD-R's.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[DirkDaring]

No, but you can sell them on eBay. Some of the classics go for upwards of $50 or more. Don't belive me? Go see for yourself.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[perljon]

Junk mail sucks, and I'd love to see it abolished

Junk mail subsidizes the post office. Without it, there probably wouldn't be a post office, or stamps would cost a whole lot more than they do. A post office is only cost effective with a certain threshold of volume. If junk mail didn't exists, it would cost more money to send the same non-junk mail.

With electronic spam, the more they send, the more it costs the receiver and the casual users of the system.

The more volume in physical mail, the cheaper it is to send and receive for the casual user.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[jlower]

Indeed - I sold an AOL 1.0 diskette and signup kit for $105 on eBay a couple years ago. The trick is hanging onto the crap long enough for it to become rare.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Aggrazel]

A lot of my DvD cases are ex-aol boxes.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[schnits0r]

Hey, take your CDs and send them to the nomoreaolcds.com cause.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[gbjbaanb]

not funny at all, think from an AOL marketing person's point of view - if they sent out CD-RWs, people wouldn't just bin them, they'd keep them and every tme they reused them, they see the AOL logo. Over and over again, instead of the current system where they see it once - on its way to the bin.

Someone should point this out to AOL's marketing dept. (just don't tell them you can slap a blank label over the top, ok).

And it'd be more environmentally friendly.

I love it when a plan comes together!

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[coyote-san]

The post office has just changed the valuation of its retirement plans... and in the view of some critics it's now the taxpayers who are subsidizing junk mail. Unlike private companies, the federal government backs the retirement benefits of USPS employees (or at least those hired before 1974).

The same article discussing this change pointed out that fully 60% of postal mail is now bulk mail, and the proportion continues to grow. First class mail is only 30% and shrinking.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[SoftwareJanitor]

That is a good point... As long as the bulk mailers are paying their fair share of postage, then they are actually helping subsidize the postal system as well as the companies who manufacture the CDs and packaging, which is the exact opposite of email spammers who are acting as a leech on the internet and contribute nothing to any manufacturers. About the only way that email spammers are slightly less loathsome than postal junk mailers is that they may be less of a nuisance in terms of environmental impact, but that doesn't excuse them much.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[perljon]

It's also important to note, that the post office is a profitable business for the government. When you see in the papers that the Post Office is losing money, it's not the truth. Because the post office is profitable, lawmakers dip into it's profits to subsidize other programs. When stamp prices increase, it's really for the sake of spending more on government programs, and not paying for postal services. Nobody loves to spend money more than a politician, and I wouldn't believe for a moment that the post office is losing money. In fact, the opposite is true.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[EvilAlien]

I find they make excellent coasters for my desk. Its kinda nice getting a new coaster everyone and while, and I like leaving a coffee ring on the AOL logo. Its very satisfying, I heartily recommend it.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Should i send you a bill for posting this opinion that i did not request and had to sift (quickly) through? Opps do i also now have to sue myself for making another one. Come on get real, YOUR PROLLY A SPAMMER and just bitching about anything you can. While i generally dislike AOL, at least we are seeing something EVERYONE hates (email SPAMMERS) getting hunted down. I say you GO AOL, and get those spammers. At least there is a little justice in this world.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Peterus7]

I find it funny that when AOL actually does something decent for the peoples, it's in the form of a lawsuit...

But then again, if AOL does it, it could open a pandora's box of anti spam lawsuits... Yummy.

I wonder if they'll start doing this against adware companies. That shit is friggin dangerous, and causes a lot more damage than an overflowing inbox.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[shadowbearer]

I line the tins with scraps of denim or old t-shirt scraps (don't use old socks, you'll have fuzzies all over.) I always seem to have an old pair of cut up jeans or t's somewhere.

SB

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[unborracho]

I remember the days when they used to be 3 1/2" floppies, and you could just format them and use them as blank disks!

Now if AOL sent out their software on CD-RW's....

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Kizzle]

You don't need a return evelope. Just write Return to sender on the evelope and stick it back in your box.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Mikeytsi]

Did I step in to "Martha Stewart: Living" or something? This IS slashdot, right?

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[L0stPack3t]

About the only way that email spammers are slightly less loathsome than postal junk mailers is that they may be less of a nuisance in terms of environmental impact, but that doesn't excuse them much.

Someone should do a study to determine the electricity it takes to deliver email spam to recipients. I wonder if it's as environmentally friendly as we think. I doubt the processing power required is neglegible.

LP

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[quintessent]

Does AOL make you pay shipping and handling for those CDs?

YES! While AOL may pay 1-way shipping and handling, I have no choice but to handle the CD and somehow get it out of the house, unless I want to provide permanent storage at no cost. Either way, I'm forced to provide AOL a free service, time and time again.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you live, but I have to write a check to the "waste management" company to get them to take my trash away. It's not paid for by taxes.

(Probably just the opposite, in fact; biggest bribe to the local government wins the monopoly contract so they can charge the rest of us whatever they like...)

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[netdemonboberb]

Its also an extreme waste of natural resources the way they currently do it.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[anthony_dipierro]

That depends. Does AOL make you pay shipping and handling for those CDs?

I have a P.O. Box, so, yeah, they do, at least in the same sense that spammers make AOL pay (bigger pipes, biggers mailboxes).

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Plortzod]

Actually while there are no known good uses of spam, there are some good uses of junkmail:

1. If I don't have any mail coming in, the USPS carrier DOES NOT check to see if I have outgoing mail. So bills going out don't go anywhere until something comes in. So as long as I'm getting enough junkmail that something comes in every day, I get out going service every day.

2. If it rains anywhere within 3 miles, my mail will be wet that day. The more of it is junkmail, the more likely the important mail will be dry since statistically it will be tucked between two pieces of junkmail.

3. If it is very hot, it is more likely that my junk mail will be resting on the carrier's sweaty arm soaking up sweat than an important letter that I really wanted to keep.

4. There are tons of well known uses for news print, like setting down to catch paint drips. As long as I'm getting junkmail, I don't have to go out and buy newspapers for this kind of stuff.

5. And last but not least, how else could I maintain my sticker collection? You know, the yes,no,maybes and all those cool little stickers they want you to send back! No way! I'm keeping them all!

If someone could come up with a use for spam even half as good as even one of the above reasons, they would change the world!

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[Slack3r78]

I don't know. Personally I've got a metal/glass corner desk, and I've found that an old CD-R with all the reflective material scraped off works perfect for me. hell, it almost looks like it's part of the desk. :)

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[j-pimp]

Well in NYC the department of sanitation takes away trash for homes and certian non profits for free. There funded through taxes. Also in NYC and Nassau ad Suffolk Counties (Long island) "waste management" companies are usually mafia frontends.

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[wiggys]

Not sure about the sweaty arms comment... :P

Re:AOL should sue themselves

[quick9vb]

Nope. You could send me bill if it was forced upon you, but you choose to view it yourself.

Go AOL!

[1337_h4x0r]

I hate AOL and all their users, but damn, this sounds great! Best of luck, AOL!

Re:Go AOL!

[Cutriss]

I hate AOL and all their users, but damn, this sounds great! Best of luck, AOL!

That's a rather broad brush that you're painting with. Some people here may be using AOL out of necessity. There are a lot of rural and small-town places I know of around here where no ISPs have POPs other than AOL.

Re:Go AOL!

[1337_h4x0r]

Still, the sheer number of idiots on AOL makes it a safe bet that if their IP is aol.com, you're talking to a waterhead. There's always exceptions.. but there are innocent men in prison too :)

Re:Go AOL!

[Snowspinner]

Hating AOL is like hating training wheels. They're not innately bad. They're a really good ISP for someone who has no real computer experience.

Most people are casual users. Just because we're all nerds doesn't mean we have to insult them. We can make money off of them instead.

Re:Go AOL!

[Dynamoo]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of AOL simply because I'm not that kind of Internet user. I don't need handholding, exclusive content or parental controls. But some people do, which is a pretty good market to be in.

AOL isn't just some ISP though. AOL Time Warner is a corporate leviathan, and according to AOL, the AOL legal department has over 60 lawyers worldwide, presumably plus anything they can pull in from the parent company.

Spammers.. be afraid. Be very afraid. :)

Re:Go AOL!

[drunk_as_in_beer]

I hate AOL and all their users, but damn, this sounds great! Best of luck, AOL!

Well, maybe if you are hanging out with bunch of geek guys, you may form this attitude. I hang out with a lot of hot chicks, in the 20-25 age group. Some of them use AOL. They are generally not idiots, and many of them are using it because their parents have it and its free to them. Some of them have recognized that AOL sucks and have either switched to something else, or are planning on switching. Yeah, AOL sucks dick, but also, some of the chicks who use AOL suck dick too which makes it all good.

Re:Go AOL!

[1337_h4x0r]

I guess if you have to troll AIM to get pussy, this is a benefit. I hereby bequeath my quota of AOL-skanks to you, my humble servant. :)

Re:Go AOL!

[mrtroy]

Reminds me of the Simpsons

During arguement at town meeting:

Who said that!?!?!?!!?!?

Crowd reveals one little guy standing alone

Little guy in same voice as before: He did. Get him boys!

You cannot defend AOL!!! Or you are one of them! At least in a cartoon sense.

Re:Go AOL!

[drunk_as_in_beer]

I guess if you have to troll AIM to get pussy, this is a benefit. I hereby bequeath my quota of AOL-skanks to you, my humble servant. :)

No, silly.. I don't meet these girls on AOL/AIM. I meet them in person (is that such a hard concept to understand?), and find out later that they use AOL. Granted, I've made some booty calls over AIM in the past, but this was with girls I already knew in person who lived a few blocks away from me.

But, hey, if someone's actually getting laid by meeting chicks on AOL, I say good for them. I've seen that happen too and that's definitely one of the advantages of AOL.

Re:Go AOL!

[ryanvm]

I hate AOL and all their users

That's okay - I'm sure they still respect you, 1337 h4x0r.

Re:Go AOL!

[jmccay]

Some people may have to use AOL because they get it for free, and sometimes that's a necessity--especially when other options use spyware.
AOL is a content provider (not just an ISP), and as such, they provide their users with features that may not be available elsewhere legally in a little while. They have streaming audio in their newest version, and they usually have a link to buy the cd. They are providing an example for member companies of RIAA on how to do business in todays world.
AOL also provides easier ways to block spam. In the mailbox, there is a button to report spam and block it. You may not like AOL, but they are using their wide audence to find spammers. This lawsuit is probably the end results of their efforts (both the users and AOL).
To blindly hate AOL and it's users because it's AOL and/or they use AOL just shows hows immature you really are at heart. It also sounds hipocrytical of you so say what you did.

Re:Go AOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, they are a content provider, and that's an ISP on steriods.

Re:Go AOL!

[sootman]

Nope, not me. I personally hate each and every one of their 22M subscribers. ;-)

Re:Go AOL!

[buck_wild]

Sounds like a friend of mine: "I don't discriminate. I have everybody equally."

King spammer

[Eric Ass Raymond]

hasn't actually figured out who all the defendants are though

Quickly, mail them the name and the physical location of that one king spammer who recently found himself subscribed on several bulk mailing lists and didn't like it at all.

Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[thogard]

A major spamer just hit one of my test boxes and in the millions of messages that went to my logging server, there are clues into who is behind some of this.

Re:Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[Ironstud]

So why was your box not locked down? Aren't you as liable for allow relay to happen on your SMTP server? I had it happen to me right after I installed a new server on my SDSL line -- so I can feel your pain -- I was configuring it when it happen. They really hit fast the smtp server was up for only 5 minutes when a spammer discovered it.

Re:Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[REBloomfield]

it was probably not locked for the same reasons yours wasn't. I've had millions of mails flow through one misconfigured box, and had nothing but derision from fellow admins. It happens, so mate, i feel for you...

Re:Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[thogard]

It wasn't locked down. It was running a stock NT4 (just like some of our customers). However there as a another box sitting between it and the wire that wasn't so eager to send packets off to port 25 on remote servers. The network looked like a connection with something funny going on. The result is that when the box came back on the net (it looks like a typical office machine behind a nated router), it would phone home and then a remote server would connect to the proxy that hte hackers insalled and try to send out messages. The 1st set of addresses go to a specifc set of addresses and then after a short time (if and only if the right address does get sent), then the box would get hit with hundreds of socket connections to its proxy. Once it did that it attempted to deliver a million or so messages in a very samll time. Once I had figured out their game, I could let their test messages through while blocking spam to most of the net. Most of the leaks involved @aol addresses because thats where the test accounts are. I faked accepance of about 5 million messages and flat out rejected millions more. I figure if this system had been up for more than about an hour (and truly open), it could have easly send a billion messages in a week.

In the local sage mailing list, someone mentioned that he hadn't gotten any spam that day. His email address was in the list list of stuff I rejected several times.

Re:Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[Latent IT]

So... in theory, all I need is an "open" relay, use firewall rules to prevent it from actually sending mail out, and then... I can harvest a list of millions of e-mail addresses that's as good as what the spamming pros use, since it's their list?

Holy crow.

Now, if only I hated humanity enough to actually put this plan into action...

Re:Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[gilesjuk]

Or just use it as a trap to record as much information about the person using it to spam people.

Re:Maybe their lawyers should ask me

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you could send out spam ONCE, ok, maybe a few times, that has the REAL phone number, address, etc.. of all the major spammers that you can collect info on. Make sure the message invites people to contact the spammers to let them know how much they enjoy their product advertisments.

I'm sure there's at least a few people out there that wouldn't mind getting that spam message...

Overseas spammers?

[theLOUDroom]

Wouldn't it be kinda funny if all the John Does turned out to be in foreign countries?

Back to the drawing board huh guys?

Re:Overseas spammers?

[azzy]

Wouldn't it be funny if they all turned out to be AOL customers...

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be fun, if it were from a country where there is no AOL ...

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe your troops could just bomb them back to 80's on the way back home?

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Scarblac]

Wouldn't it be kinda funny if all the John Does trned out to be in foreign countries?

Why? AOL can sue them there.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, OK, since you insisted.

We can only hope that it's France, though.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Stonehand]

Er, and accomplish what exactly? Bear in mind that without any asset in US jurisdiction, an overseas spammer won't have anything to confiscate, and need not feel compelled to cooperate. And his host government may not give a damn, since it probably has more important things to look at. The ISP may well not care, given how many overseas ISPs have been spamhauses for months on end, if not years.

Without either ISP or government cooperation, you won't even know if there's a genuine connection between the spammer and the service that's being offered! If, for instance, it were automatic to bar Visa and MasterCard from approving transactions to thusly marketed merchants, you could therefore be targeting an uninvolved company, such as a business rival of whoever commissioned the spamming.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Wouldnt it be funny if we decided that foreign spam was a terrorist plot and thus sent in the FORCES to NEUTROLIZE these threats? I would vote for that! I would love to watch on CNN/FOX live up to the minute ASS POUNDINGS OF SPAMMERS :) I think it would make great TV :)

Re:Overseas spammers?

[SacredNaCl]

Bear in mind that without any asset in US jurisdiction, an overseas spammer won't have anything to confiscate, and need not feel compelled to cooperate. And his host government may not give a damn, since it probably has more important things to look at. The ISP may well not care, given how many overseas ISPs have been spamhauses for months on end, if not years.

In my view of things, as Spam is a criminal act in more and more places, the companies that hire spammers to market their products in that way are just as guilty as the actual spammer. Even if the spammer doesn't have assets inside of the USA, the company he is spamming for probably does and probably uses enough shipping and trade services even if they are locates somewhere else to be bound by the numerous trade treaties we have. IE: We *can* take their assets.

The day we start seizing the assets of the companies who hire them, is the day the spam stops. It's brutal, it's ugly, but RICO is the way to go.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[buck_wild]

Remember, we're free to kick YOUR ass too.

And how do all of those percieved shortcomings prevent us from the whole "Bring us your tired, your poor" thing?

I'll bet you ANYthing that your country is crappier.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[buck_wild]

Perhaps we'd blacklist all of the ISPs that associate with them, causing more than a little heartburn...

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Remember, we're free to kick YOUR ass too

I think you'd need to get into shape first, wouldn't you? Lost a little weight? You fat fucking fucks.

"I now inform you that you are too far from reality" - http://www.WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com/

Re:Overseas spammers?

[buck_wild]

As long as you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

>As long as you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Yeeesss...you know, that really works better as an Englishman talking to an American, rather than vice-versa!

Hate em all you want

[Jesus IS the Devil]

I know we all like to bash Aohell, but at least they're one ISP that seems to be doing something right these days... fighting spam to its death... unlike 99% of all other ISPs.

So where is Sanford Wallace these days?

Re:Hate em all you want

[wiggys]

Exactly. Suing 5 spammers won't wipe out spam overnight but it should send a strong message to the other spamming bastards out there.

Re:Hate em all you want

[AKnightCowboy]

I know we all like to bash Aohell, but at least they're one ISP that seems to be doing something right these days... fighting spam to its death... unlike 99% of all other ISPs.

They're just fighting it because it isn't AOL advertising. I had to use AOL to check my e-mail when I was over a friend's house once and holy sheep shit batman. Right when you log on you get assaulted with tons of banner ad spam. AOL just wants an exclusive market for their spam instead of sharing it.

Re:Hate em all you want

[kleinux]

They're just fighting it because it isn't AOL advertising. I had to use AOL to check my e-mail when I was over a friend's house once and holy sheep shit batman. Right when you log on you get assaulted with tons of banner ad spam. AOL just wants an exclusive market for their spam instead of sharing it.

Maybe, but you can turn all that off with one checkbox in the preferences dialog box. If I could turn off spam with one click I know that I would be happy.

Re:Hate em all you want

[kasper37]

Don't fool yourself. The only reason they are doing this is because it costs them time, bandwidth, server resources, and most importantly, customers who will go to other service providers who can provide a better defense against spam. All of these things translate into a loss of revenue for them - which is the only reason why they are trying to go after the spammers. Hell, they would spam people themselves if they thought they could get away with it! My prediction is that even if they get the ISP records subpoenaed (which is scary in itself) they are going to get traced back to someone in a country where they will have no chance of getting restitution.

Re:Hate em all you want

[jkrise]

What if they chose medium sized spammers and left out the big ones on purpose? As many have pointed out, AOL themselves are spammers... recently MS argued AGAINST (!!) tough penalties for spammers; makes you wonder if AOL would sue MS.

This whole spam thing seems to me a long drawn process of killing the medium sized gorillas and forming an unholy association of the larger ones. To top it all, there's a big spin on spam originating outside the US!

Re:Hate em all you want

[McDutchie]

So where is Sanford Wallace these days?

According to this article, he now runs a non-spam autoresponder service. But there are a good 150 hardcore spammers who took his place.

Re:Hate em all you want

[thogard]

Suing the right 5 spamers might make more of a difference than you think.

I had an NT box cracked and a proxy put on it. (read about the filters in another post) The people who did that were out to spam in a big way. Had my server worked they way they had planned, it could have sent out a billion messages in less than a week. My own email address was in the junk they were attempting to deliver spam to and that consited of 10 messages or so. Considering I'm only getting 50 spams a day, if one spamer can generate 20% of that, I'll be happy with nailing 5 spamers if they are big spamers.

Of course the person who rooted the NT box can get caught, I've alos go logs where they tried to hack other boxes includeing .gov and .mil machines. Maybe someone from .gov wants to look at the logs.

Re:Hate em all you want

[McDutchie]

I had to use AOL to check my e-mail when I was over a friend's house once and holy sheep shit batman. Right when you log on you get assaulted with tons of banner ad spam. AOL just wants an exclusive market for their spam instead of sharing it.

Please keep your terminology straight. Spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail sent postage due. Annoying as they are, banner ads are not spam any more than commercial breaks on television. Not only are they not e-mail but they are actually paid for by the advertisers and you are soliciting them by logging on to the AOL service that includes these ads, i.e. you have the option not to do so, just as you can turn off your TV.

Comparing spam to banner ads confuses the issue by making spam seem more legitimate than it really is. It cannot be repeated enough: spam is theft of service, parasitic traffic living off of bandwidth and manhours paid for by others. This is the message that needs to be hammered into those that matter in the grand scheme of things, so that the appropriate laws get passed to throw the perpetrators in jail where they belong.

Re:Hate em all you want

[McDutchie]

The only reason they are doing this is because it costs them time, bandwidth, server resources, and most importantly, customers who will go to other service providers who can provide a better defense against spam. All of these things translate into a loss of revenue for them - which is the only reason why they are trying to go after the spammers.

As if that's a bad reason! Or do you need reasons of a higher ethical caliber to go after a burglar who breaks into your house, costing you valuable time and resources?

The whole point about spam is that it's theft of service. AOL is taking some steps towards treating the spammers like the thieving crooks that they are, and that can only be considered a Good Thing[tm] for everyone.

Re:Hate em all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the person who rooted the NT box can get caught, I've alos go logs where they tried to hack other boxes includeing .gov and .mil machines. Maybe someone from .gov wants to look at the logs.

Yeah, nail those fucking bastards.

Re:Hate em all you want

[The Evil Couch]

yes, we would. I just sent you an email to your abnormal.com account.

Re:Hate em all you want

[jmccay]

You can turn off AOL Advertising. That may be hard for you to understand, but it is possible. I actually get more advertising on my yahoo account (and that's maybe 3 a month--email wise from yahoo) than I do on my AOL account email or otherwise, and with the pop-up blocking I get a lot less pop-up ads. Their banner adds are small and don't appear everywhere.
If I had DSL, I'd appreciate the FREE AOL streaming radio more, but I get AOL for free and while it DOES have limitations, it's not as bad as most people here make it out to be.

Re:Hate em all you want

[hetairoi]

I know it's useless, but I'm gonna do it anyway, just to make myself feel better.

You can easily turn off all the AOL banner ads and most of the other offending material, just go to preferences\marketing and set everything to off.

Also, I'd like to point out that AOL is one of the very few ISP's that offer dialup from almost anywhere, with no extra charges for out of towners. Back when I travelled all over the country this was of great importance to me.

Recently, since the spam blocking feature was implemented in 8.0 I've noticed much less spam going to my open aol account. Sure, I still get a good bit, but I can tell it's dropping, I used to get hundreds of spams/day, now I only get about 25 or so. Also, I have another screenname where I use the built in blocking tools, sure they aren't great, but I NEVER get spam to that email address, if only because it blocks everyone I don't accept.

My AOL account is used by 4 people in 3 different states. AOL has never even questioned this, please tell me of another ISP that wouldn't freak when different users logged in from different states. My parents use it and a couple of my friends use it for email and some web browsing. Oh, and even though they likely don't know it, you can minimize the aol window and use whatever browser you choose. I will also point out here that AOL does not kick you off for inactivity anymore, or even pop up a msg telling you you've been idle (ok, the buddy list msg pops up, but that's it). That hasn't been part of AOL since about version 4.0.

And about all those cd's they send out, there are tons of uses for them. I've always got plenty of coasters, even though I rarely get an AOL cd in the mail anymore. I really like the cases they use now too, toss the cd and I have a new cd case to use with cd's of my choice.

I proudly admit to having an aol account for at least 10 years. The only problem I have ever had with AOL was back when they had the huge surge of users and I kept getting busy signals, but hey, sometimes business is better than you expect. It only took them a few months to get enough lines up in my area and I haven't seen that problem since then.

As to your point about AOL advertising to it's users, well, yeah, duh, they are in the business of making money. I see nothing wrong with this. They offer a channel for their users to buy things, if a particular user doesn't want to use those channels they can turn them off, easily.

Sorry for the rant, but I just don't get why so many people just bash AOL because 'AOL users suck'. Maybe it's the same thing with Wal-Mart, they are hated because they are successful, both started out as small, individually owned companies and have grown into enormous intergalactic corporations.

\sigh\ If I didn't know that this post isn't going to get read I'd feel like I were committing karma suicide by admitting that I actually like AOL.

Re:Hate em all you want

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I know we all like to bash Aohell, but at least they're one ISP that seems to be doing something right these days... fighting spam to its death... unlike 99% of all other ISPs." ... who aren't on the radar because they don't send out nearly as much spam.

Re:Hate em all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

You can turn off all AOL-related advertising, including banners ads, popups and email ads by visiting AOL KW: MarketingPrefs

You can also turn off ALL bulk mailings to your address and ALL phone calls to your phone number on file.

And yes, we do respect those preferences :)

Re:Hate em all you want

[letxa2000]

Don't fool yourself. The only reason they are doing this is because it costs them time, bandwidth, server resources, and most importantly, customers who will go to other service providers who can provide a better defense against spam.

Sounds like a perfect reason to do it! What's your problem with that? No one is calling AOL a saint or declaring them to be the protector of all that is good on the Internet, but in this case they are doing the right thing and doing something that has the potential to help everyone regardless of whether or not they are an AOL user.

eh

[machine of god]

On one hand, suing spammers; on the other, forcing providers to disclose customer activity. It's dancing with the devil. (I'm assuming, since I've never actually done it to my knowledge. But I think that's what it would be like.)

Re:eh

[ratamacue]

I agree. The solution to this problem (any problem) should not, under any circumstances, involve compromising the rights of others. Why should the service providers (and thier customers) be penalized because AOL has a problem with spam? If AOL and its lawyers cannot determine who is sending the spam, then AOL is out of luck.

Keep in mind, if it actually does happen that service providers are forced to disclose private data, then we are looking at a problem with government, not a problem with AOL. Only government has the power to initiate force, not AOL.

Re:eh

[Stonehand]

If it's anything like ordinary spam, that "customer activity" is probably blatant fraud. I'd say that most of the spam which gets through my filters is insultingly obvious fraud or otherwise illegal -- Nigerian bank scams, cross-border pharmacies, herbal cure-all quackery, and pyramid schemes, "free"-but-CC-still-required porn, et al. Occasionally it may be possibly legitimate, if bizarre -- such as somebody trying to spam for some kind of Canadian Healthcare Directory (?!) -- but generally no.

And if there are privacy concerns, one could always set up a system in which the identity is known only to a judge or similar intermediary until, say, enough evidence is gathered for an indictment.

Re:eh

[leviramsey]

AOL is not initiating force. If these requests are initiation of force, then it is simply AOL asking the government to initiate force (that's what a subpoena is). Of course, the argument can be made that the spammers are initiating force against AOL by stealing their service.

Re:eh

[Eskarel]

Well depending on how it's done, it's by no means a real violation of either privacy or any other civil right.

Firstly, what AOL is essentially doing is asking these ISPs to disclose the source of spam messages. Spam is essentially thrown into the public domain for all and sundry to see, it is not web browsing habits or even something which deserves a reasonable amount of anonymity. If I receive a real letter which has a false address on it, that's mail fraud, it should be the same for spam. All AOL wants to know is who sent them something they already received, the spammers sacrificed their right to the privacy of that information when they sent that e-mail.

Secondly, spamming ought to be thought of as a criminal activity(this is the only way we'll ever get rid of it), evidence of criminal activity would result in a perfectly legal warrant for the information in question were it, as we wish it to be illegal.

Thirdly, we in the US(which is where this is happening I assume) are only about 3 years away from the government having a record of absolutely everything we do on-line(or elsewhere) anyway, and while they're busting down my door for thought crime, they may as well be busting down the door of a spammer's house as well.

Re:eh

[ratamacue]

AOL is not initiating force.

Yes, that's exactly what I said. Like any private organization or individual, AOL does not hold the right to initiate force against another organization or individual. Again, if it does happen that service providers are forced to disclose their data, we are looking at a failure of government, not a "market failure" as many here would have you believe.

the argument can be made that the spammers are initiating force against AOL by stealing their service.

Yes, of course, and I would agree with that stance.

Re:eh

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

UM isp's release information about you all the time. Especially to law-enforcement. Also check you TOS (terms of service) you will be surprised. Yes you are bought and sold like any other commodity...now get over it....

Re:eh

[buck_wild]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the solution is not to force providers to disclose customer activity. It's to block ALL traffic from said ISP until it deals with the problem itself.

This defines irony...

[somethingwicked]

I know its not a unique thought, and it's not quite the same thing, but

I find this such utter hypocrisy as their "Free CDs" are spammed to everyone

Not that they should stop going after the spammers, they just need to let up on the CDs

Re:This defines irony...

[Ed Avis]

The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.

Re:This defines irony...

[TCaM]

While I have no interest in the many free aol/earthlink/other isp cds I get in the mail, they have never reached the point where my mailbox has been overcome in a single day thus forcing my mail to be bounced. Aol pays postage and production costs for this crap, most spammers pay very little and generally do cause damage and increased costs to their victims.

Re:This defines irony...

[watzinaneihm]

I find spammed CDs fun. I actually get something for free, which if nothing else I can use as a coaster (or pop in my microwave). I like snail-mail spam next. You could do a dilbert and install a paper burning home heater. Spam email is the worst kind. It costs the sender nothing (or next to nothing) and I have have to delete them (which is work).

Re:This defines irony...

[peekitty]

It's not hypocritical at all when you consider the motive:

Sending millions of CDs = new subscribers = money.
Successful lawsuit = money.

Where's the conflict?

Re:This defines irony...

[Cutriss]

The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.

And this comment within itself outlines how one can deal with the problem.

Simply put, you're not paying the postage...AOL is doing so pre-emptively. That means that you can mark all of your AOL CDs as "Return to Sender", and cost AOL even more money.

Keep it up. They'll stop. They did for me. :) The last straw for me was when I had a PO Box, and I had to wait in line at the Post Office for 20 minutes for an unexpected pickup notice, only to find the new AOL CD in a DVD case...too big to actually fit in my PO Box...

Re:This defines irony...

[Flabby Boohoo]

"...foot the postage charge yourself"

Not really the point is it? At $20/month for dialup, cost of each piece of spam is rather insignificant. Cost is not the issue, annoyance is.

I get at least 3-4 cd's a week at work. A couple at home. Annoying. Just like spam.

Re:This defines irony...

[somethingwicked]

Personally, I still believe its a valid complaint.

Yes, yes, it is more complicated than my simple analogy...

As I said tho, you're right, its NOT the same thing, as I said in my original post. However, it IS in the same spirit:

Send out craploads of cheap "mail", if 1 out of 1000 bites, you win. Screw the other 999 who wasted time and effort dealing with your crap.

Would you suggest if they didn't have to pay the postage they would THEN care about the people who don't want their crap?

Its like a musician who steals cable or satellite service and then bitches about his songs being pirated when he gets his one hit. Its not the EXACT same thing, sorry I tried to make such a leap of logic *grin*

Re:This defines irony...

[DiveX]

[I]That means that you can mark all of your AOL CDs as "Return to Sender", and cost AOL even more money. [/I]

Wrong. The CDs were sent via third class mail. This is the 'it gets there when it gets there' kind of delivery service. Subsequently, if they are refused or marked in that manner, they are usually just destroyed simply because it costs more for the postal service to do more processing.

Re:This defines irony...

[gbjbaanb]

Think yourself lucky, AOL actually sent you something useful - an empty DVD case. Those things cost (inc postage) to get.

Now, I'd have a complaint against AOL if they started sending me horny young teens, herbal viagra and youth drugs through the post.

umm. what am I saying! more spam, more spam!

Re:This defines irony...

[secolactico]

At $20/month for dialup, cost of each piece of spam is rather insignificant.

But how much does it cost to your provider in terms of bandwitdth and storage space (as well as processing time)? And as their costs goes up, the difference will get passed on to you.

Re:This defines irony...

[Amroarer]

Surely it's not hypocrisy if they admit to that motive.

The hypocrisy would arise if they claimed in each case that they were doing it for some moral reason.

In my view.

Re:This defines irony...

[theLOUDroom]

The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.

How about disposing of them? AOL doesn't pay for my garbage removal, I do. They're sending me something I don't want, without return postage, therefore I am forced to dispose of it, at my cost.

If they did send me 100 cds, I would be forced to pay to dispose of them. Given how many of those damn things they send out, I would say I've probably already recieved 100 of them. :P

Re:This defines irony...

[alain1234]

I don't pay for email spam because I have an unlimited bandwidh.
It essentially causes pain to configure a spam filter and delete manually what passes through.

Very similar to putting all the garbage in my physical mailbox to the trash everyday, so at least for me the comparison is perfectly valid.

How do they know it's five?

[Shoten]

How do they know it's five spammers and not, say, ten? Nice to see George Moore in the list of known defendants though :)

Re:How do they know it's five?

[Anonymous Coward]

His home address got signed up for all that snail junk-mail and now AOL's going to end up owning the house. How appropriate!

This did not happen

[Mohammed Al-Sahaf]

This is yet another lie. These companies did not send any spam. Today we slaughtered them in the airport. They are out of Saddam International Airport. The force that was in the airport, this force was destroyed. The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!

Re:This did not happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahahahahaha! Mods, give the guy some points will ya?

Re:This did not happen

[Anonymous Coward]

On Tuesday April 15, @08:24AM, Mohammed Al-Sahaf dragged it out and flogged it some more:

This is yet another lie. These companies did not send any spam. Today we slaughtered them in the airport. They are out of Saddam International Airport. The force that was in the airport, this force was destroyed. The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!

Ha ha ha ha, alright? Now shut up already or go back to imagining a Beowulf cluster of 1.2.3. in Russia profit watches you or something.

The crucial element of humor is that all-important P300 brainwave I-wasn't-expecting-that spike. You gotta get the spike. The first time I smack you in the face with a pie, it's gut-bustin' hilarious, but if I do it fifteen times in a row, it's... ahh, nevermind. You're definitely right about the press.

Re:This did not happen

[Anonymous Coward]

damn, how long is this crap going to continue to be modded up

Re:This did not happen

[Tackhead]

> This is yet another lie. These companies did not send any spam. Today we slaughtered them in the airport.

Y'know, I think we've got a job for you after the war. As part of the terms of ceasefire, you'll be required to make good on just one of your pronouncements. Please, God, let it be that one. *g*

Re:This did not happen

[TheGreek]

Nah. He already got one right:

"I speak better English than this villain Bush"

Re:This did not happen

[dr.g]

All your humor are belong to us.

Oh, sorry...

Not just spam.

[FyRE666]

Surely they could also sue for "wire fraud", sue to the ridiculous and blatently untrue claims in most of the spam. Then there's the pyramid schemes, 419 scams etc. I'd think in those cases, it would be more lucrative to lodge complaints about the contents of the spam the scumbags are sending rather than the spam itself. "73 million counts of wire fraud" sound good to me!

Re:Not just spam.

[lylum]

Yeah... and thanks to the great US law system that would result in 73 million * 5 years in prison = 365 million years in prison... what was that about unusual cruel punishment?

Re:Not just spam.

[alkali]

The animal known as "wire fraud" is a criminal violation of federal law. It's not a thing Joe Citizen can sue for. (Similarly "mail fraud.")

You can sue for garden-variety fraud under state law, but you have to have been actually defrauded (i.e., you actually believed some false statement and were damaged by relying on it). If you know you're being lied to, you haven't been defrauded.

Re:Not just spam.

[roothorick]

IANAL, but that's only the same as a few thousand life sentences, isn't it? And face it, you'll probably die in prison with only three or four life sentences, what's a couple thousand more? You'll never serve them...

Re:Not just spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

But wire fraud comes with 39 months in club fed with no parole.

I'm Confused

[Col. Panic]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Lesser of two evils? I'm not sure how to feel about this. I think I'll hate them both.

Re:I'm Confused

[SuperQ]

there is no reason to hate AOL.. just don't use them, or reccomend them to people that you care about.

I personaly like having them around, they keep all the idiots on this planet away from good ISP's like the one I use for my servers. Small, localy owned, and easy to deal with.

If the stupid morons on this planet didn't have AOL, my friend adam (who's the sysadmin there) wouldn't have time to take care of my BGP issues, or write 4/1 RFC's.

Re:I'm Confused

[Col. Panic]

Hey, ya gotta hate something :)

I have actually recommended AOL. Once. To a user who was like 70 years old when she got her first computer. It came with a free 6 mo. trial and she wanted the computer for email so I said why not try it out and if she didn't like it she could always switch. I figured the interface would be the most user friendly since they deal almost exclusively with n00bs. Unfortunately, she had trouble seeing the toolbar icons because they were so small and they were not scalable, so I think she ended up dumping AOL for MSN.

One who isn't a John Doe

[AndroidCat]

AOL hasn't actually figured out who all the defendants are

They do know who at least one is: George Moore aka "Dr. Fatburn". Who is also being dragged into court by Symantec as well.

I wonder if his own actions to try to gag a web site turned him into a lawsuit magnet?

Re:One who isn't a John Doe

[frankie]

George Moore aka "Dr. Fatburn". Who is also being dragged into court by Symantec

Poor George. Sued by large corporations twice on the same day. At least he's got some experience with losing in court. And it's tax day -- the trifecta would be if he gets audited by the IRS for not reporting his spam profits.

Who should be sued?

[ASPirant]

I find it interesting that they always go for the outlet doing the spamming. Why don't they sue the individuals paying the spammers to send the emails? Instead of trying to kill the spammers, starve them by making companies think twice about using this method.

You'd think that this means of advertising would actually destroy the "goodwill" of the product being advertised. I know I have less respect for companies that use this means.

Re:Who should be sued?

[FyRE666]

Why don't they sue the individuals paying the spammers to send the emails?

Well the most obvious reason would be that a company's rivals could pay a scumbag to send out spam just to ruin their reputation and see them taken to court. I'm sure most of the pr0n/scam companies advertised in the spam have a pretty cavalier attitude toward keeping track of their finances, so it'll be difficult to follow an audit trail to prove guilt.

Re:Who should be sued?

[schon]

Why don't they sue the individuals paying the spammers to send the emails

Because, as much as we might not like it, stupidity is not a crime.

Spammers are con-artists - the only difference between spam and bilking little old ladies out of their life savings is that spammers have two sets of victims - the people they con to pay them, and the recipients of the spam.

Should we also start suing the little old ladies who get caught by con-men pretending to be bank officers? It think this would have the same effect as suing people who hire the spammers (ie, none - there are always stupid people to be bilked.)

Yes, the people paying the spammers are stupid for falling for the spammers' lies - but stupidity isn't a crime.

Re:Who should be sued?

[jellomizer]

Well the people who pay the spammers to send spam are the same people that buy stuff over spam. Its this little sub echonoimy thing where a buch of people rip off a bunch of people who are tring to rip them off. And we get the shrapnal that we call spam.

Re:Who should be sued?

[ASPirant]

I'm sure most of the pr0n/scam companies advertised in the spam have a pretty cavalier attitude toward keeping track of their finances, so it'll be difficult to follow an audit trail to prove guilt.

You've got an excellent point. But didn't other companies go down for not sticking to proper accounting procedure? Sounds like a good candidate for some serious accounting investigations. That could bring them down too.

Re:Who should be sued?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that deadline is now over, the IRS is now paying rewards for turning in the offshore porn people who are avoiding paying US taxes.

Re:Who should be sued?

[Afty0r]

Why don't they sue the individuals paying the spammers to send the emails?

Well the most obvious reason would be that a company's rivals could pay a scumbag to send out spam just to ruin their reputation and see them taken to court. I'm sure most of the pr0n/scam companies advertised in the spam have a pretty cavalier attitude toward keeping track of their finances, so it'll be difficult to follow an audit trail to prove guilt.

If there's no audit trail to follow, the innocent company will be found not guilty, and the spammer will be put out of business for not following accounting procedures.

If there is an audit trail, it will lead to the company committing the action, I don't see the problem with the above.

However, if you hire a shipping company to haul cargo for you as fast as possible, and they get busted for speeding, are you liable? Should you be? What about if you didn't know they would speed? What about if you did?

Hard Call, IMO but the current lawmaking trend is to prosecute whomsoever is easiest to find in the chain with any possible ties to the guilty party, rather than the perpitrator of the crime so perhaps the idea is a good one, if we take this kind of law enforcement and lawmaking as being beneficial to society.

Re:Who should be sued?

[TopShelf]

Accounting investigations usually refer to SEC regulators, who are concerned with public companies. I can't imagine that there are many public companies engaging in pr0n/scam spamming!

Re:Who should be sued?

[rearden]

The problem with that is that in many cases the spammers are not legally selling what they are offering. Take the recent case posted on /. where the spamers personal info was posted (can't find the story now or I would link to it). In that case when Symantec was approached (because the guy was selling Norton Anti-Virus by spamming ppl) Symantec reported they were investigating him for selling pirated copies.

It stands to reason that spammers who use fraudulent claims, methods or unethical tactics are more than likely not legitimate marketers and thus not being used by legitimate companies.

In short it would probably do no good to go after the companies being marketed because most of them are probably being scammed by the spammer too.

Re:Who should be sued?

[ASPirant]

Kinda reminds me of the situation we've been experiencing with a Collection agency. They seem to think that my wife is the person they're looking for (although the middle initial is different as well as the SSN). They were collecting on a Sears account. I contacted Sears and there is nothing they can do about it because they "sold" that unpaid debt and it is out of their hands.

Although not an exact corollary, it does show how there may be nothing to be gained going after the companies whose products are spotlighted in spam emails as they may not even authorize it.

Maybe if we tell all rednecks that spam killed Dale Earnhardt, they'll go get em!!

Re:Who should be sued?

[Exedore]

Oh, come on, that has to be the weakest argument I've read on /. in quite some time.

For the most part we're talking about companies that sell (among other things) "herbal viagra", penis enlargment, and cures for balding, using claims that are tenuous at best... for the most part, their own businesses are themselves cheap scams. You're expecting us to believe that they're legitimate businessmen being conned by what they assume are legitimate "internet marketing consultants"? Don't be absurd.

Even so, if a business hires a spammer to market their products, the spammer becomes a de facto agent and representative of the company and the company can be held liable for the actions of the spammer. Any business owner who doesn't understand this simple concept deserves what he or she gets.

Re:Who should be sued?

[Tackhead]

> Accounting investigations usually refer to SEC regulators, who are concerned with public companies. I can't imagine that there are many public companies engaging in pr0n/scam spamming!

As opposed to, say, Worldcon (uu.net), Verio, Rackspace, XO, and Level3. Nope, none of those fine upstanding companies would knowingly host spammers or have questionable accounting, no sirree!

(It's a lie! The SEC investigators are not in the corner office! Our glorious accountants have shredded everything! Our boss was just play-acting some sort of role-playing-arrest thing at the corner office, that's why he had those fake plastic handcuffs on...)

Re:Who should be sued?

[frankie]

Why don't they sue the individuals paying the spammers

They are. Quoting from AOL's full press release:

Member-Referred Defendant #2: George Moore, Maryland Internet Marketing of Maryland, and 14 of their advertising affiliates. Spam Content: software products (www.getnortonhere.net).

M.I.M. is the advertiser, and his "affiliates" are the spammers. Weird though -- getnortonhere.net is registered to WebXtasy in Canada. I wonder how they determined it was George.

Re:Who should be sued?

[bigsteve@dstc]

However, if you hire a shipping company to haul cargo for you as fast as possible, and they get busted for speeding, are you liable? Should you be? What about if you didn't know they would speed? What about if you did?sy

If it can be proved that you knowingly requested them to do something illegal, you should be liable and possibly are. It depends on the "conspiracy" laws, and the nature of the illegal act. The problem is that it can be difficult to prove "knowingly".

Back to the specifics of your suggestion, the problem with legally requiring the spammer to maintain an audit trail is that he's going to ignore the legal requirement 99% of the time. If he's going to risk being thrown in the slammer for illegal spamming, the missing audit trail is not going to be on his "radar screen". (This is not to say that an audit trail requirement is wrong ... just mostly ineffective.)

the always needed simpson's quote

[sweeney37]

AOL the source of, and now solution to, all of our spam problems....

Mike

Great!!

[gabeman-o]

I have been recieving around 50 spam emails per day for quite some time now. I finally got so fed up with deleting them that I have been just forwarding them to AOL's Terms of Service dept.
Maybe some day I'll be able to log into my AOL account without having 500 emails (I only use my AOL account for dialup for when I'm not home so the email goes unchecked for quite some time).

Re:Great!!

[falsified]

(I only use my AOL account for dialup for when I'm not home so the email goes unchecked for quite some time).

Suuuuure.

Re:Great!!

[buck_wild]

Nice. So now they think that you're spamming them. Maybe they'll get you in the next round of lawsuits.

Double standard of community opinon?

[MrLint]

Ok here is the disclaimer right off, I do not advocate spamming, and i think there needs to be a gulag that spammers are thrown into. That much said, from the article, "filing the lawsuits gives AOL additional authority to subpoena service providers and others to try to track down the spammers" I recall much derision when the RIAA sued Verizon for customer info of alleged music traders. Now AOL is suing to get spammer customer information. I think we need to seriously consider the possibility of situational ethics. The track record of scumminess of the RIAA is widely hated, so most don't like anything they do. Likewise spammers, also so widely hated so no one cares what happens to them (even me). When is getting a customer's info right, when is it wrong? I think this is a tough question we, as a community, have to think about and perhaps ultimately face in the future.

Re:Double standard of community opinon?

[rearden]

I may be off my mark here as IANAL but there is a big difference. AOL has proven that a) there has been a tangible violation of the law b) they have tracked the violater back to a particular system(s) c) they are suing the violator and not the company the violator is using to send email.

In the RIAA vs. Verizon case RIAA was suing to get the subscriber information without ever proving that there were specific incidences of copyright violation (instead charging that P2P is ONLY used to steal music). In addition they did not sue copyright violators (as a "Jane or John Doe") and then use supoenas to get the personons name. Instead they sued Verizon to get the information directly. Verizon's argument from the begining was that that RIAA was skipping step one- 1) Show evidence of a crime and step two- 2) Seek to take action against said anonymous criminal (this may seem odd, but our legal system allows us to sue an unknown person/ group and fill in their name later). Instead RIAA sued the people who "facilitated" the crime and stated that all of Verizons customer records should be on display to the RIAA Nazi SS forces without proof or ponderance in court.

AOL, as stated, is instead going directly after the offenders and using the power of the courts to get specific information about specific crimes, not all customer information at will and on demand.

Just my $0.02

Re:Double standard of community opinon?

[Erasmus Darwin]

"In the RIAA vs. Verizon case RIAA was suing to get the subscriber information without ever proving that there were specific incidences of copyright violation (instead charging that P2P is ONLY used to steal music)."

Huh? From my reading of this article, it sounds like the person whose information the RIAA was after had either shared or downloaded songs in violation of their copyright. Verizon's argument seems to revolve around the fact that the songs weren't being hosted on their servers, meaning that the DMCA should be inapplicable as a means of legally requiring the release of subscriber information.

I just don't see anything in the article that implies the RIAA was claiming "P2P always equals Piracy!" They were going after a specific person, and the article quantifies (although does not identify) the songs being shared. That's a far cry from the RIAA suing to find out the identities of anyone who runs KaZaA regardless of how they use it.

Re:Double standard of community opinon?

[nolife]

Not quite:

RIAA wanted Verizon to turn over the the records without getting the courts involved. Verizon does not want to give this information out without a court order. AOL is going directly for the court order. Very different scenario..

What the RIAA really wants is to avoid the courts and use the DMCA for the inital step of information gathering so they can act faster and more efficiently for shutting people down. The disadvantage of this is that they are no checks and balances present without the courts involvment, the ability to request this information on a whim could very easily be abused and nothing in terms of real proof required that a copyright violation is truely occuring. What Verizon does not want is a precedent set where any company that feels a copyright violation has occured can request this information at will. This would be a great strain for Verizon to support this. They want a court order steps followed to limit these requests, kind of like a security deposit to prevent a flood of requests for user information.

The court battle they are in now is mainly to determine if organizations like the RIAA can request this information via the DMCA and without specific court approval. This is a much larger issue then RIAA vs. Verizon.

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-982809.html
http: //www.eff.org/Cases/RIAA_v_Verizon/

Re:Double standard of community opinon?

[volkris]

What? Slashdotters having inconsistent opinions? No!

The general opinion of Slashdot on various matters is incredibly inconsistent. I mean honestly, it's like a bunch of children.

In general there seems to be no real ideology behind the opinion of Slashdot. The good guys and bad guys are picked based not at all on the merits of their actions.

Hmm, maybe somebody else should sue spammers..

[xXunderdogXx]

Can't the people who make SPAM (the pseudomeat product) sue spammers for defamation of a brandname?

Re:Hmm, maybe somebody else should sue spammers..

[/dev/trash]

Well, I am pretty sure that the spammers don't call the emails they send out SPAM.

OH THE HUMANITY

[jvbunte]

I am ashamed to call AOL my 800lbs Gorilla.

At least AOL has lawyers and money and might actually be able to do something here. It DOES cost them money not to mention the negative stigma of knowing if you ever sign up for an AOL account, your email will be prefilled with 1000 spams before you even log on the first time.

Its not that other ISP's don't do anything, they are just more concerned about shielding their customers from it rather than eliminating the source of it. My "Earthlink Spaminator" cuts my incoming spam flow by about half. Sure this doesn't solve the problem of spam, but for Earthlink, it shows the customer that they are at least trying to shield them from it.

Superglue + AOL CDs =

[Andy Dodd]

Great Christmas tree decorations. mmm shiny...

(Yes, I DO use a few CD sandwiches on the tree each year, they compliment the old family silicon wafers... Which are actually a lot nicer than you'd expect. They were rejects from a testing facility that had a tendency to oxidize the wafers in really colorful patterns. My family started using them just after my parents got married and they were both working in IC process development and didn't have anything else to put on the tree.)

They already tried that long ago

[StringBlade]

Hormel Foods (makes of Spam - Spiced Ham) tried to sue many years ago for defamation of their product by the use of the word 'spam' to connote unsolicited commercial email.
The court held that there wasn't really a problem because people wouldn't confuse Spam (the food) with spam (the unwanted email). Additionally, Hormel's product was spelled with a capital 'S' whereas the email blight was spelled with a lowercase 's'.

They used to have a disclaimer on their site stating something to the effect that they do not endorse unsolicited commercial email and have nothing to do with 'spam' or 'spammers'.

However, they do have a nice Spam town festival every year at the company headquarters in Austin, Minnesota.

Re:They already tried that long ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they'd succeeded. They went after an actual spammer --- who, aparently, actually described himself as a spammer, not "Internet Marketing" or "Opt-in Emailer"

Sue the people who buy from the spammers

[kaltkalt]

While currently there would be no cause of action, I feel buying from spammers should be "Contributory Spamming" and, just like contributory infrigement, should be punishable, at least on the civil side. It's the people who say "ooh herbal penis strengthening pills! Send me a dozen bottles" who are the real problem, even moreso, in my opinion, than the spammers. They should be held just as liable as those who send out 10,000,000 emails, because their one purchase is what makes it profitable and provides the incentive.

1. Buy from unsolicited email;
2. Become liable for millions of dollars;
3. No more spam.


Notice that there's no step "???" between 2 and 3....

Re:Sue the people who buy from the spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one.

4. Profit!!!!!!!!

:)

Re:Sue the people who buy from the spammers

[kaltkalt]

true -- if we get rid of spam, we most certainly all profit :)

You know what's funny?

[sootman]

As much as we love to bash AOL, they *do* have the resources to put something of a dent into spam. If they wanted the goodwill of the community (btw, thanks for mozilla and winamp) they could easily buy it--just start sending out flocks and flocks of lawyers to sue as many spammers as possible under the spam laws of every state that has them. Kinda like doing pro-bono work for the Internet community. Not sure if it'd be enough to stop all the open relays in Europe and Asia, but I imagine that most of the spam I get for mortgages and herbal viagra originate in the US, even if they come via overseeas servers.

If they wanted to, of course. I doubt they will. Oh well. A boy can dream.

Sue the address forgers

[grahamm]

What would also be useful is for AOL (or another high profile site) to locate and sue the spammers who forge From addresses to make it look as though the spam came from AOL, Yahoo etc when it did not.

Here's their disclaimer....

[StringBlade]

http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm

Why I stopped hating AOL.

[doublem]

AOL gets a bad rap, and I've been trying to figure out why.

They are the reason Netscape is still around, and just about all the money that went into developing Mozilla came from AOL.

They pay for the development of Winamp, and distribute it free of charge.

They created and maintain the single largest FREE Instant messaging client out there. AIM cost them money.

They have a simplified system that lets people new to computers and the Internet get online with little fuss. They are a decent entry level ISP.

They are one of the few competitors Microsoft has to take seriously.

They sue Spammers, or at least try to.

So why are they so hated?

Customer service sucks, is even predatory.

All those damn coasters they send out.

They're possibly the biggest ISP out there.

Lighten up. Someone out there started hating AOL and it's snowballed since then. If AOL dies Mozilla goes with it, as does AIM, Winamp and Netscape.

Mozilla might survive as a sourceforge project, but most of the developers will be gone. For all intents and purposes, it will be dead.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[Doug Neal]

They created and maintain the single largest FREE Instant messaging client out there. AIM cost them money.

Don't forget ICQ (even though it is basically the same as AIM nowadays, but without AOL, ICQ would have died years ago).

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[Todd Knarr]

Because AOL gave millions of people who had no clue about the Internet access to the Internet. This is much akin to taking several million people who have no clue how to drive, giving them shiny new high-performance cars and dumping them on the freeways.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you were not on the net in 1993.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[doublem]

*blush*

Well, I had an AOL account in 1993...

It wasn't until 1994 that I had real internet access.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[DeathPenguin]

Hmm, I don't remember hearing of any AOL-related fatalities recently. Care to cite an example?

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[DeathPenguin]

Ah, yes. I used to be an AOL user myself eight or nine years ago. Then I switched to a "normal" ISP and gained the typical elitist asshole attitude toward AOL users. Then I realized that AOL really isn't so bad considering how they fund some of my favorite programs and basically let the developers continue their work with little or no influence. Now they're actually trying to eliminate spam at its roots*, not just pile on more filters. This is something all spam-hating internet users should be greatful for.

You're absolutely right about Winamp, Mozilla, and AIM, and anyone out there using any of those products (There are millions, you know who you are) who zealously criticizes AOL is just a hypocrite. It's even worse than Windows users insulting Microsoft because there are lots of widely-available and easy to use alternatives to AOL services.

*I sympathize for those who had their own mailing systems on their home connections blocked.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[Schnapple]

Besides the other reasons cited here, one of the reasons AOL is hated so much is because, traditionally, the speed of their connection sucked for various reasons. The chief blame laid upon the fact that their network merely grafted Internet access into their fold. Consequently, instead of being able to rely on even decent dial-up modem speeds, developers of Internet related software (like computer games) had to do extra work to make up for the "short bus" people on AOL.

In addition, it's my information that their motivations for buying out other companies is dubious at best. They knew that home.netscape.com got lots of hits so they figured owning Netscape would get them lots of advertising impressions. Of course the reason home.netscape.com got lots of hits is because lots of people never bother to change their home page, something that went away once IE took the market. They knew that MP3 was "this big thing" so they bought out the most popular MP3 player - this was at the time that most people thought Napster was "a website". Of course AOL merges with Time Warner (or did they?) which owns record labels that don't care for MP3 at all - and imagine their thrill when Justin Frankel (of Winamp/Nullsoft) turns around and writes Gnutella and gives birth to the (soon to be) post-Napster P2P boom.

As for Mozilla "dying" - well this is as good a time as any to test out those open source notions.

As for AIM dying, well witness how Napster dies, so Morpheus becomes big, then Morpheus dies, so KaZaa becomes big. People move on. Hell, thanks to Trillian all I'd notice is a little circle being dimmed.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[doublem]

All good points.

I think the connection issues you mentioned with AOL is one of the reasons it's a beginner's ISP. It's easy to use, but the bottom line is it's not the most reliable or functional bundle around. Even casual gamers need to get ready to move on.

I think the reasons you mentioned are more a case of being misguided than anything else. That said, whatever the reasons for buying Netscape and Winamp, they've kept them going, and apparently well funded for quite a while.

However, with Winamp 3.x, I think the argument can be made that AOL is probably setting up contingency plans in case they have to go against Microsoft's IE and Media Player. I imagine it gives them more bargaining power just to have well funded and functional alternatives, even if they ever need to use them.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[yoshi_mon]

Part of the reason from a tech standpoint comes from the pool of geeks who have worked in tech support for ISPs other than AOL.

While they have gotten better about it, during the mid-late 90's AOL-was-evil. They hosed up many systems with all sorts of DLL, registry, and other nonsence that made switching from them (Or even just getting their crap off the box after some kid decides to stick their CD in your computer to "see what it is".) a true nightmare.

And to be fair to some of those AOL users, they got understandabily pissed off at AOL too. They might have been newbs upon joining AOL, but some of them were pretty sharp and quickly learned that they did not need the 9 sets of training wheels that AOL forced upon them. So when confronted with the mess that it took to switch to a new provider they also became pissed.

Now AOL did wise up a bit and realize that all those keep their software on the persons computer at any cost was in fact costing them more good will than it was worth, they still did it. And it was a bad thing.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[neptuneb1]

No, it's not. My first access to the internet came from AOL way back in 1995 at the age of 10. AOL's internet access, while shoddy at best back in the days of 3.0, gave me access to all sorts of information/tutorials/documents/etc on everything from C++ to info for research papers, chatting with people from countries I had never heard of, and the ability to communicate with anyone almost instantly. If you want to compare AOL to something, compare it to giving a library card to millions of Americans that have never set foot in a library. Yes, it does clog up what was traditionally "your" library, but in the end, the world is a better place.

Re:Why I stopped hating AOL.

[drunkenbatman]

Well, I had an AOL account in 1993...

Do you one better (or more embarrassing). I had an eWorld account. Then delphi. But yeah, eWorld. Think AOL, but castrated.

the power of public opinion

[branchstudios]

On one hand, suing spammers; on the other, forcing providers to disclose customer activity. It's dancing with the devil

I wonder what the impact would be, in the cases where AOL cannot track down the spammer without violating individual rights, if they were to simply contact, or if needed, publicly identify the ISP that knowingly hosted the spammer, and then let the flood of complaints begin.
If somebody told me that stack of spam was coming from *ISP-name-here*, and that *ISP-name-here* had been informed, but wasn't doing anything about it, I'd certainly be rerouting all my "male enhancement offers" in their direction..

And of course, if that occurs to them, I wonder what the chances are they'll abuse that idea to make other ISPs look bad...

Sue the pants off everyone!

[st0rmcold]

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against going after the spammers, but isen't this whole suing game getting old? Everyone is sueing everyone else to get as much money as possible, and it's all our (consumers) money they are sueing each other over, maybe we should stop giving it to them and that way they won't be able to sue each other anymore. :P

Re:Sue the pants off everyone!

[MaxPower582]

Well...I have found that in the real world, if there is no risk, no one will listen. Companies will not listen to anyone or follow laws of a nation unless they will lose something like...money. Can you hear me now?

not sure about wire fraud....

[kajoob]

..but they've sued and won previously for Trespass to Chattels. That's fancy talk for messing with somebody's stuff, in this case - aol's mail servers. Incidentily, in AOL v. National Health Care Discount ( 121 F. Supp. 2d 1255) it seems each email costs $.00078, that's how they determine damages.

What AOL could REALLY do

[wowbagger]

What if AOL were to go to the Tier-1 ISPs that fail to enforce their terms of service against spammers, and say,

<voice character="ED-209">Your customers are in violation of your terms of service. You will terminate them. You have 15 hours to comply.</voice>

And should they fail to comply, null-route those Tier-1's at AOL's border routers.

What do you think Exodus, Verio, and UUNet would do when they faced the very real possiblity of being blocked from AOL?

Re:What AOL could REALLY do

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL are already blocked from all my servers for blocking me from mailing their subscribers from home. I'd encourage others to do the same, it's great they're fighting SPAM and everything - but if they wont repair their mailservers then connection attempts made from a host using AOL's network will be dropped.

Re:What AOL could REALLY do

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you one of those people running a mail server on a DSL line with an anonymous reverse DNS name that looks just like where tons of spam comes from? If that's the case, why should you be paying money to support an ISP that lets spammers send spam and won't give you a static IP with valid reverse DNS that names your server? I see you are posting as AC.

Re:What AOL could REALLY do

[Anonymous Coward]

Kindly show me any SMTP related RFC that states a machine must have a corresponding CNAME. The ISP I have at home is the only one in the area and I don't see why I should have to spool mail through the servers at work, or use my ISP's relay just to get round AOL's violation of email standards.

I see you are also posting as AC.

If AOL wins its case...

[DigitalDad]

...who actually receives the money? Will AOL pocket it and report it as profit to their share-holders or will they actually do the right thing and somehow pass this to their customer base who are actually the ones who are inconvienced by the spam? Don't get me wrong, I think AOL has the power to do something about spam, but the only thing that I see happeneing from all this (if they do in fact win) is boosting their bottom line as spammers will just go off-shore and charge more for their services.

Everybody gets a piece?

[Jimithing DMB]

Pardon me for picking on you, but I find these kinds of comments troublesome; you aren't the first to make them.

Why exactly should AOL, a (fairly) normal profitable company, disburse lawsuit monies to its customers? They are suing the spammers because it is already costing AOL money to handle the spam. As big as they are, don't forget that they are in fact an ISP.

ISPs have a lot of costs, one of those costs that can even kill a smaller provider is spam. If AOL wins this case (and if they hopefully set a precedent) then ISPs will be able to charge the spammers for money they should have already paid.

Realize that the costs of spam are already coming out of your pocket. Part of that money you send to your ISP every month is used to cover these costs. Presumably, if an ISP can recover the cost from the spammers, then they won't have to charge additional monies for dealing with spam because it's already paid for.

The ISP market is still pretty cut-throat, so as more ISPs are reimbursed for their costs of handling spam, the price difference will be reflected in the service fees in order to stay competitive.

As far as spammers going offshore, that's really an easy solution. If they are in a country that doesn't allow them to be sued for spamming, then just block all mail from that country. Black lists are an excellent method of, erm, persuading people to change their minds about allowing spam.

Re:Everybody gets a piece?

[DigitalDad]

Please don't get me wrong, I fully agree that this is a good thing. I only look at it in a different light. If AOL wins, that will be a fantastic development in the fight against spam.

Before I started working where I work now, I worked for a few different regional (smaller) ISP's helping them get off the ground technically and know full well how spam effects their bottom line. My viewpoint is that the ISP (AOL in this case) has built their systems to componsate for the current level of spam. If this level would be cut in half, then their costs for handling spam would feasably be halved. I'm hoping for the same solution as you presented being that the price differene will (should) be reflected in service fees being lowered. That would be an ideal, but I quite honestly don't see that happening.

I guess that I'm a tiny bit skeptical about the whole thing. The only outcome that I see is that if AOL wins, their bottom line will be rosier and their stock holders will be happier. I can see this as setting percedence in the future and hope that it in fact does. At the very least, it's a step in the right direction...

You hate aol users?

[SteveXE]

I dont know why you would hate AOL users, i got AOL back in 97, and i still have an account, i also have DSL but not through aol, while i agree for the most part aol sucks it does have it uses in areas other then community. Its also the worlds only free ISP, call and say you wanna quit and you get 2-3 months free, when thats up call again...and again...and again

What if nobody could buy their products?

[ASPirant]

The best way to make spammers go out of business is to destroy the ability to purchase the products they advertise. Just how do you do this? The same way we bring down any website that happens to be linked on Slashdot.

Yeah, /. the websites where you order the product and then no one can order from their site. Eventually, the customer who sells the product goes out of business or they no longer use spam. Maybe name the website "spamdot.com".

Re:Countersue

[EvanTaylor]

Ahh, but aol actually PAYS to send out those mails, and frankly I dont mind the dvd cases they send me. Now if only they would distribute their aol cds as some sort of CDRW media that their software resides on 50 megs of the cd, and we can use the other 650 megs for our own data. :)

I enjoy junkmail

[Anonymous Coward]

It keeps the cost of postage for regular mail down, so I really don't mind regular junk mail.

Spam is different, I get nothing out of it.

Actually a cool Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Create a SETI-like program that gets addy's to DOS and then use distributed PC power to hit their websites over and over. Simply get addresses to look at and look at them over and over in a massive reload loop. Do nothing other than LOOK at the pages, as if a cat had walked across your keyboard in the same pattern. Nailing spammers would be fun
Someone write the app today. Just a browser script thing with updates via a P2P network. Not Gnutella!

Re:Actually a cool Idea

[Alidar]

This would be sweet.

How hard could it be, didn't I see a ton of this 'Get Paid To Surf' things a few years ago....

-Alidar

Your enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just software, man. Use it or lose it for something else.

How to stop junk mail

[jedijacket]

I've written up some instructions on how to stop receiving junk postal mail and telemarketing.

It is a sucky process (takes up to six months), but its the best we have for now. I haven't gotten an aol cd in about a year.

Honeypot black hole for spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a bunch of people set up traps like this it would certainly make life a lot more difficult for the spammers who depend on being able to use open relays...

(hint)

Yes, we do pay for AOL's spam

[dachshund]

That depends. Does AOL make you pay shipping and handling for those CDs? No? Then it's not spam.

In a sense, we all pay for those CDs. The taxpayer, that is.

You should read this article. The latest "bailout" of the postal service means that we're going to increase the Federal Deficit and perhaps wind up with a massive pension crisis in a few years, all because Congress can't abide raising rates on bulk mailers like AOL.

There's certainly a complaint here

[dachshund]

The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.

Congress recently approved a deal that will help keep postal rates from rising until 2006; this involves some fancy accounting which increases the Federal deficit and insures that we underfund the Postal pension plan (read: taxpayer bailout in a few years). So in a sense, you (the taxpayer) are helping to pay for AOL's advertising (and believe you me, the bandwidth cost of 100 spams is much less than the postage on a single CD.)

So I'd say that there is a valid complaint to be made here.

Re:There's certainly a complaint here

[Anonymous Coward]

So in a sense, you (the taxpayer) are helping to pay for AOL's advertising

In word: no. If anyone is paying, it's the bulk mailers who are subsidizing the cost of your first class postage...

Re:There's certainly a complaint here

[dachshund]

In word: no. If anyone is paying, it's the bulk mailers who are subsidizing the cost of your first class postage...

In a word, yes. I don't use first-class postage often enough to put up with the additional $2.9 billion on the deficit and a pension bailout brewing at $5 billion a year. Let them raise it to 40 or 50 cents, and raise AOL's rates accordingly.

I'm not sure I agree.

[doublem]

Most techies who sees an AOL address assumes they're dealing with someone who is "new" or has the skill set of someone who is "new." While the "Me too" posts are annoying, they are not unique to AOL.

The example you give, dumping untrained drivers on the roads, is not the best one. On the Internet, being the average AOL user (I'm referring to the stereotype here) does not generally put the lives and property of others in danger.

AOL is more like driver's ed class. The @aol.com address is the computer equivalent of the big yellow "Student Driver" sign we put on Driving Education cars in the US. It's a warning.

At least on the Internet, you can filter @aol material to the trash bin, be it on Usenet using a decent news reader, or in your e-mail.

Besides, do you REALLY want to lock new users out? We were all new users once, why is there so much anger against the newbies? At least AOL lets us identify them with a big label, as opposed to a cable modem account, which doesn't tell us much of anything.

Re:I'm not sure I agree.

[DeathPenguin]

Besides, do you REALLY want to lock new users out? We were all new users once, why is there so much anger against the newbies?

Damn right. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of skilled IT workers owe their jobs to these people ("Noobs," "n00bz," or "nubs" for you elitist fuckwits out there).

Re:I'm not sure I agree.

[Todd Knarr]

One difference between driving and the Internet is that they don't put student drivers in cars out on the highways. At least not right off. First, you sit in a classroom and learn, from lectures and reading, the theory of the basics. Then they give you a test to make sure you've actually absorbed the basics. Then they put you in a simulator. Then, if you pass the simulator, they put you in a car in a closed lot with no other cars around and see if you can put all that theory into practice without being too dangerous. Then, only after you've passed all that, do they let you out on the highway, and even then only with an experienced driver along for the first few months.

Imagine the howls if we imposed the same rules for Internet access...

Re:I'm not sure I agree.

[doublem]

I'm reminded of the old "If people treated their cars the way tehy treat their computers" e-mail that circulated a while back.

I like the idea.

People need to know that they need certain basic skills to use a computer, and it's NOT as easy as using a VCR.

Sadly, people think computers should require zero new skills (Because they hate learning) and Microsoft agrees, so we get ever more castrated operating systems.

*sigh*

If the truth were known..

[Chocolate Teapot]

...this lawsuit is not about spam, but rather about false advertising. After carefully sifting though millions of messages over the past five years, AOL are simply pissed that they have failed to add the promised inches.

Never thought I'd actually be rooting for AOL

[Interrobang]

...usually I'm kind of hoping that they'll dry up and die.

Wait...wasn't there another post on parallel universes? Maybe I'm really not on the Slashdot I usually know and love anymore...

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be +5 insightful.

This distinction really is very important. You need to make the lines clear.

I'm with you.

[Mustang Matt]

AOL "sucks" because it used to be a crappy service that infested your PC and was never to be removed. Now I think they've cleaned up their act. I think you can even get connected to AOL without all the software using a standard dial-up connection.

The thing is, that crappy software interface is good for a lot of computer illiterate people.

The junk CDs help subsidize the cost of postage rates too.

I thought it was interesting that

[skintigh2]

out of 1 billion spams, there were 8 million complaints, or 0.8% complainers. Does that mean 8 millions online reports on spam, or 8 million calls? I don't know if I should be shocked at how low the number of reports is, or how high the number of calls is.

Re:I thought it was interesting that

[MaxPower582]

You are assuming that one spam = one person. I believe in the real world, one person with get more than 1 spam email...donut you think.

Re:I thought it was interesting that

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you REALLY want me to forward to you all the messages that my filter sends to /dev/null?

Since a lot of people do agressive filtering, I can understand the low complaint ratio.

Re:Countersue

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

First, you idea about a countersuit is completely misguided, MUCH like your stupid, liberal stance on SUV's. In fact it makes me want to run over your skull repeatedly with my SUV!!!

Wait....

[Rev Saxon]

So they are sueing people for spam, yet the majority of spam I get is from an AOL account. So does this mean that they are going to sue themselves out of existance. The world can only hope.

Re:Wait....

[frankie]

the majority of spam I get is from an AOL account.

The spam might have an AOL address in the From: header, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual sender.

They only get fighting spam halfway right

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article to the end, you find a mention of the policy that lead to this article on their blocking people who host their own mail servers.

Every anti-spam measure causes collateral damage. You have to balance them. I like this lawsuit. I am willing to see both sides of the debate on blackholing blocks of IPs from providers who do not take action on spammers. But they simply went too far with that policy.

DMCA: Read This!

[deblau]

I don't know how many of you keep up on the DMCA, but you really need to read Title 17, Sec. 1201 again. I'm not sure when they changed it, but there are a lot more exemptions in there than there were last time I looked. Paragraphs (f), (g), (i), and (j) in particular are promising (but whoever has better lawyer$ will win). WTH is the deal with paragraph (k)? They're trying to phase out VCRs, for crying out loud.

Re:DMCA: Read This!

[ninewands]

Quoth the poster:

WTH is the deal with paragraph (k)? They're trying to phase out VCRs, for crying out loud.

But they haven't yet, and Blockbuster still rents out a significant number of videocassettes. Subsection (k) just says it's illegal to make or sell home VCRs that DON'T respond to the various copy protection technologies used on analog systems, specifically, futzing about with the AGC signal.

Easy call

[Anonymous Coward]

By now everone is aware of spamming and its consequences. Users of spamming services know what they are getting into. If they are convinced otherwise (i.e. we are a 100% Opt-In List) then they can sue the spammer themselves for the subsequent damage.

Which brings me to my next point. When you receive spam, I advocate "retorting" to the spam. Load the page (minus the little web bugs and referrers where applicable). Do it once. The more people who auto-load a spamvertised page, the faster it goes down / bandwidth bills explode / or the freehost being abused takes note.

Don't give me any arguments that it is too easy to joe-job an innocent party. It WILL take a case or two, and a couple innocent parties will get hurt. Antispamming activity cannot be restricted because "someone might get hurt." We are all dying the death of a thousand cuts every day from spamming. Once the fallout from a couple huge incidents is over, it will become too dangerous to spam any more.

They already get those same spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a program that merges the spam and shoots out a report. And by now block residential dsl (including port 35 from TW) and the domains .bz (not .biz).

Re:Countersue

[anthony_dipierro]

Most spammers have PO Boxes, so they're PAYING to receive AOL CDs.

Re:Countersue

[anthony_dipierro]

MUCH like your stupid, liberal stance on SUV's

Actually my sig is sarcastic.

wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Most serious spammers make money by selling collections of email addresses for "mass marketing". This trickles down until the list finally gets to some clueless company who is new to the Internet and thinks unsolicited email is a good way to reach potential customers.

But regardless of their pitch, the vast majority of spammers have absolutely no intention of selling anything whatsoever. They simply want to verify that your email address is valid.

Re:wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry ... "selling anything" should actually say "selling you anything".

Go Spammers!

[xant]

Sorry, today I thought I'd be anti-AOL instead of anti-spammer.

AOL is Time Warner

[isaac]

AOL used to be merely annoying, not actually evil. Let's not forget that AOL became AOL Time Warner a few years back, though. Now they're the largest media conglomerate in the country - and a core member of both the MPAA and RIAA. There are plenty of good reasons to hate AOL that have nothing to do with Eternal September or the way they try to jam AOL cds into every crevice in the universe.

-Isaac

Re:AOL is Time Warner

[Piquan]

AOL is not the same as TW in my mind. Sony Music is different than Sony Electronics, even though they both sit under the Sony logo.

Now they're the largest media conglomerate in the country

So? Why does that make them inherently evil?

a core member of both the MPAA and RIAA

TW/AOL is, but the AOL part probably cares nothing about that.

There are plenty of good reasons to hate AOL

Could you name some? I really don't understand this anti-AOL sentiment.

Re:whe!

[PetWolverine]

Let's see...contrast this:

On one hand, suing spammers; on the other, forcing providers to disclose customer activity. It's dancing with the devil.

with this:

-sig. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

So, denying people information is bad, but asking for certain information is also bad? You can't have your cake and eat it too (certain Dylan lyrics notwithstanding). Either that, or in your heart you dream yourself AOL's master.

Well, Ralph Waldo Emerson did say that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines" (Self-Reliance). Perhaps I'm just being petty by asking you not to be too blatantly hypocritical. Or maybe ol' Ralph was full of hooey.

America - the land of the sue (or is that sioux ?)

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's new?

Re:DMCA: Read This! - Beta? LOL!

[grolschie]

And a few lines down:

" Beta format analog video cassette recorder, unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology, except that this requirement shall not apply until there are 1,000 Beta format analog video cassette recorders sold in the United States in any one calendar year after the date of the enactment of this chapter; "

Not true.

[gr3y]

Junk mail subsidizes the post office.

I'd love to see a comparison between the total cost of sending all mail the post office currently delivers (first class, bulk, non-profit, etc.) and the total cost of the fleet of extra vehicles, fuel, personnel, canvas tubs, etc. that moving the non-first class mail requires.

Of course, the post office doesn't publish its numbers that way. I suspect it's because that transparency would paint quite a different picture. I believe that the high volume of junk mail sent by the post office results in higher prices to the consumer, not lower, because of the extensive infrastructure that must be maintained to deliver it.

Spam from Charter

[Anonymous Coward]

My ISP Charter Communications has its main server blocked as a source of spam by some German Universities. If I am going to communicate with my customers I have to have my own mail server.
Charter is running its mail service from a single location in what is close to being an open relay.

only logical

[hhknighter]

I bet they are hoping to get some financial backing to help them on their upcoming insider trading suit.

"We need funding for a law suit!" - Sue a few spammers
"We need funding for marketing, to bombard the public with useless AOL CDs" - Sue a few spammers

I'd not realised they were edible

[Frogg]

I think I'll have to experiment a little more with the cooking time, as they seem a bit too crunchy for my liking - any suggestions?

Last Post!

[alpg]

I used to live in a house by the freeway. When I went anywhere, I had
to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway.

I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights. Now it looks
like I'm the only one moving.

I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know
the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
to be out that long."

I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out. Now
my car goes 500 miles an hour.
-- Steven Wright

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