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AOL Sues Spammers
mabu writes "Prompted by what they're reporting as over eight million complaints and the result of over a billion inbound junk e-mails, according to this press release, America Online is now stepping up its battle against spam by initiating five lawsuits against over a dozen companies and individuals. Let's hope this is the beginning of a more aggressive effort on the part of ISPs to prove to their users that they are seriously interested in addressing this issue, and at its source. I've maintained that this has never been a freedom of speech issue. It's more an issue of mail relay hijacking, forging header information, and exploiting third-party networks and resources. Perhaps if more ISPs took action, we might see the backbone providers doing so as well?"
Didn't we see this earlier today?
Or are AOL stories like AOL CD's...
Dupe!
Hmm...
Spam tacos...
or Spam burgers?
Duplicate spam burgers! Twins!
Hahaha!
Location: Mt. Xinu
Well, I don't mean to add another layer of confusion for you....but the article is a dupe. :)
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I like it when companies finally realise they're capable of actually working FOR their customers. And tell me, who here would prefer 500 spam mails a day over 3 AOL discs a week? Nobody? Exactly what I think. AOL's discs provide me with free CD cases and coasters. What is there to complain about? When you're sick of having a half billion coasters you simply give them to your local recreation center to be used as frisbees, or to a nice gun club for skeet shooting practice. Spread the love.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
>>Perhaps if more ISPs took action, we might see
>>the backbone providers doing so as well?"
Not likely since backbone providers bill the ISP based on the amount of traffic, traffic = $$$ as far as the backbone provider is concerned.
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
I'd say spammers. AOL at least gave us Mozilla. That, and you never see anybody on Slashdot cheering a movie made by spammers.
They filed their own suit, on the same day by coincidence. Not a good day in the life of George Moore. Poor poor spammer.