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

[Mikeytsi]

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

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.

Re:Overseas spammers?

[azzy]

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

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

[TheGreek]

Nah. He already got one right:

"I speak better English than this villain Bush"

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.

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: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: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: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.

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

Re:Go AOL!

[ryanvm]

I hate AOL and all their users

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

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:Go AOL!

[sootman]

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