QuickLinks - Junk mail (spam)

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Issue no. 230 - 7 April 2002

• USA - AOL Says Spam Case Victory Sets 'Landmark' Precedent (Newsbytes)
  Officials at America Online believe the Internet giant's legal victory over a large "spam" distributor lays the groundwork for other Internet providers to more effectively combat unsolicited e-mail on their own networks.

Issue no. 228 - 17 March 2002

• Netherlands - Abfab can no longer spam XS4ALL subscribers (Press Release)
  Abfab has been ordered to stop inconveniencing XS4ALL subscribers by sending them spam, unsolicited commercial bulk mail. If it persists, it will face a penalty of EUR50 per e-mail, up to a maximum of EUR2.5 million. That is the result of the summary proceedings instituted by XS4ALL against the Amstelveen-based company. The judge at the Amsterdam Court has ruled that XS4ALL has no legal conveyance obligation and can therefore ban third parties from sending spam through its systems.

Issue no. 226 - 3 March 2002

• Online Porn Purveyors Get Under E-Mail Users' Skin (E-Commerce News)
  Few things sell quite like sex, but the sales strategy of some online porn purveyors is getting under the skin of e-mail users. Their complaint: pornographic spam, that particularly vexing form of junk e-mail that is increasingly infecting computers.

Issue no. 225 - 24 February 2002

• France - Spamming - ordonnance du TGI de Paris (Forum des droits sur l'internet)
  Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, ordonnance de référé, 15 janvier 2002 Monsieur P. V. contre Société Liberty Surf et Société Free. La pratique du spamming, considérée dans le milieu de l'internet comme une pratique déloyale et gravement perturbatrice, est contraire aux dispositions de la charte de bonne conduite. Les défenderesses étaient dès lors fondées à couper les accès à internet du demandeur, simple conséquence du non respect de ses obligations contractuelles.

Issue no. 224 - 16 February 2002

• France - Un internaute condamné pour publicité sauvage (ZDNet France)
  Grande première en France: un internaute a été condamné pour avoir envoyé en vrac et par courrier électronique des publicités non sollicitées (le "spam" en jargon). Une décision du TGI de Paris qui va faire jurisprudence. Une fois n'est pas coutume, le spam ne paie pas. Par une ordonnance de référé datée du 15 janvier 2002, le tribunal de grande instance de Paris a condamné un internaute français à payer 1254 euros à ses fournisseurs d'accès internet (Free et Liberty Surf, aujourd'hui Tiscali). Cet individu pratiquait avec assiduité le "spam", ou l'envoi en masse par email de messages commerciaux non sollicités.

• USA - FTC Launches Crackdown on Deceptive Junk E-mail (Press Release)
  The Federal Trade Commission is launching a three-point program to crack down on deceptive spam.Seven defendants caught in an FTC sting operation have agreed to settle charges that they were spamming consumers with deceptive chain letters. The FTC will mail warning letters to more than 2,000 individuals who are still running this chain letter scheme. Finally, the agency will launch a public/private education effort in conjunction with various Internet Service Provider (ISP) associations.

Issue no. 223 - 10 February 2002

• USA - Canning the spam (FT)
  Junk e-mail - or "spam" - is a growing problem that has eluded all efforts at elimination. Spam filters, which search for keywords and block suspect e-mails, simply do not work. Worse, some block legitimate e-mails. However, a crackdown by the US Federal Trade Commission and a new approach to isolating spam devised by Truste, a group that has established a widely used self-regulatory privacy system for the web, promise some relief. Marketers Embrace 'Seal' Program For Commercial E-Mail

Issue no. 222 - 2 February 2002

• USA - FTC To Announce First Ever Crackdown On 'Spam' (Newsbytes)
  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is poised to announce an unprecedented law enforcement sweep against deceptive junk e-mail, also known as "spam".

• USA - Marketers Embrace 'Seal' Program For Commercial E-Mail (Newsbytes)
  Microsoft, DoubleClick, and a host of direct marketers will begin using a new service and technology created to help consumers quickly distinguish between valid e-mail from companies they trust and unsolicited bulk e-mail, a.k.a. "spam". Customers of companies that have signed up for the service will receive e-mail containing a graphic - or in the case of non-HTML mail readers, a hyperlink - that when clicked opens a Web browser window that contains information verifying the sender and recipient. The new service, dubbed the "Trusted Sender" program, seeks to couple the reputation of Truste’s well-known "privacy seal" program with a technology developed by the ePrivacy Group, a Philadelphia-based company created from an unusual alliance of marketing experts, privacy advocates, and anti-spam activists.

Issue no. 221 - 26 January 2002

• Résumé Spamming Brings An Online Backlash (Washington Post)
  Already frustrated by unwanted sales pitches and suggestive come-ons, e-mail users now face another onslaught, this time from desperate job seekers.

Issue no. 218 - 6 January 2002

• USA - California anti-spam legislation upheld (summary by Michael Geist)
  California appellate court overturned a lower court ruling that declared an anti-spam provision in the state's Business and Professions Code unconstitutional. The case contains a detailed discussion on the application of the commerce clause to the contested provision and deals with several other spam legal issues, including an action in trespass by a spam recipient.

Issue no. 217 - 16 December 2001

• USA - Peacefire.org Wins Spam Suits (Newsbytes)
  Bennett Haselton, the Webmaster for anti-Internet censorship Web site Peacefire.org, is the latest in a string of Washington residents to emerge victorious in small claims court by invoking the state’s new law against unsolicited bulk e-mail. While the $2,000 in damages he’s won would hardly seem worth the six-month fight, Haselton said he’ll soon be taking more spammers to court now that he’s learned how to work the system.

Issue no. 213 - 11 November 2001

• Japan - Court issues injunction on DoCoMo spammer (Japan Times)
  In what is believed to be the first legal action against spamming on mobile phones in Japan, the Yokohama District Court has issued an injunction against a firm that is allegedly sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages to customers of NTT DoCoMo Inc.

• USA - Supreme Court Won't Strike Down Washington Spam Law (Newsbytes)
  The Supreme Court rejected an appeal challenging Washington state's law against unsolicited commercial e-mail, also known as "spam." The justices will allow a state superior court to hear a lawsuit against an alleged spammer.

Issue no. 207 - 18 September 2001

• EU Parliament to re-examine e-mail spam plans (Reuters)
  The European Parliament hit deadlock over a pan-European ban on unsolicited e-mail known as "spam'', sending the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector back to a committee for another look. see Commission proposal, Report by Marco CAPPATO A5-0270/2001 and EP Daily Notebook. see also EU rejects chance to put the lid on spam (vnunet).

• USA - Bush Administration To Target Privacy, Spam & 3G (Newsbytes)
  The Bush administration hopes to move aggressively to craft policies on several telecom-related initiatives in the coming months, including "3G" wireless deployment, Internet privacy, and unsolicited e-mail, or "spam". Nancy Victory, the new head of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) said that the agency was taking the lead on crafting an "omnibus privacy policy" that businesses and government agencies could use to construct clear and proper privacy notices for their Web sites.

Issue no. 206 - 3 September 2001

• USA - Anti-spam group makes up with pollster (CNET News.com)
  The Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) has removed Harris Interactive from its database, known as the Realtime Blackhole List. Some Internet service providers use the list of IP addresses, linked to alleged spammers, to block unwanted e-mail. Under the deal, Harris Interactive has agreed to change its opt-in system to confirm that the people on its mailing list want to receive its e-mail polls.

Issue no. 205 - 3 August 2001

• The great CNET spam-off (CNET)
  We decided to find out which online activities and even mail services generate the most junk e-mail and look at ways to recover from the deluge.

Issue no. 203 - 19 July 2001

• Europe bottles spam ban (The Register)
  An amendment was adopted by the Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Justice and Home Affairs Committee blocking Commission proposals for Europe-wide legislation forcing e-marketeers to seek the permission of consumers before they send out commercial emails. See also German Multimedia Group Supports 'Opt-In' Spam Standard (Newsbytes).

• Spam Blockers Pass It On (Wired)
  A controversial list that helps e-mail administrators block traffic from spam-friendly servers has now passed to a third generation of volunteer activists after a second-generation operator was sidelined.

• Verizon Limits Users' E-Mail Addresses (Washington Post)
  Verizon announced a new policy to fight unsolicited commercial e-mail: customers who use a different domain name won't be able to send messages from that address. The change has angered some customers and puzzled Internet experts, who doubt the policy change will do much to help,

• Fixing a Hole Where Spam Comes In (Wired)
  ISPs are battling rogue spammers lurking in the back alleys and hidden corners of their networks. As the fighting heats up, more and more legitimate e-mail is getting blocked along with the junk.

Issue no. 200 - 14 June 2001

• A spam cop goes AWOL (Salon)
  The ORBS blacklist, a controversial tool for stopping unsolicited e-mail, is suddenly inaccessible.

• Washington Junk E-Mail Law Upheld (Newsbytes)
  The Washington Supreme Court upheld a 1998 state law aimed at curbing the use of unsolicited commercial e-mail, or "spam." see State of Washington v. Jason Heckel Doing Business as Natural Instincts (Supreme Court of the State of Washington).

Issue no. 198 - 28 May 2001

• USA - House committee slices spam provisions (Reuters)
  A House committee scaled back legislation that aims to curb junk e-mail, cutting out provisions that would allow consumers to sue companies that ignore requests to be taken off their mailing lists. The House Judiciary Committee also added a measure that would require pornographic messages to be labeled as such, allowing consumers to delete the messages without opening them if they so desired.

Issue no. 196 - 15 May 2001

• Spain Slams Spam With New Law (Internetnews)
  Following a tug-o-war between proponents of privacy and those of unfettered advertising, Baudilio Tome, Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information Society, announced week the final draft of the Information Society Services and Electronic Commerce Law -- which clearly bans unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Issue no. 195 - 8 May 2001

• Spain - La AECE critica la prohibición del 'spam' (Europa Press)
  La Asociación Española de Comercio Electrónico (AECE) considera que la anterior regulación del correo electrónico comercial no solicitado ('spam') contenida en el borrador del Anteproyecto de Ley de Comercio Electrónico era ya "bastante restrictiva". Pardo advirtió de que el cambio en la normativa para prohibir el 'spam', anunciado por el Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, puede suponer que empresas nacionales creen sociedades en el países donde esta actividad no está regulada para enviar 'e-mails' a internautas españoles

• USA - FTC Supports Senate Spam Bill (Newsbytes)
  A US Senate bill that would criminalize some forms of commercial e-mailing got a boost when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) endorsed the measure. The legislation requires that commercial e-mail messages contain valid return addresses that recipients can use to opt out of receiving further unsolicited e-mail. Spammers who "spoof" or fake their e-mail or physical address under this bill could be fined.

Issue no. 194 - 23 April 2001

• USA - Giving spam the network boot (CNET News.com)
  Last month, a New York state judge granted bulk e-mailer MonsterHut a temporary restraining order forcing ISP PaeTec Communications to allow the company to send commercial e-mail over high-speed Internet pipes.

• Internal E-Mail Accounts For A Third Of Office 'Spam' - Study (Newsbytes)
  When most e-mail users talk about spam, they're usually referring to unsolicited pitches for "money-making" work-at-home schemes or advertising for cheap Viagra substitutes. But a new survey conducted by Gartner Inc. suggests that 34 percent of business e-mail within a company might deserve the spam label.

• Technical and Legal Approaches to Unsolicited Electronic Mail (Spamlaws)
  David E. Sorkin - U.S.F. Law Review article, David E. Sorkin, 35 U.S.F. L. Rev. 325 (2001). Unsolicited electronic mail, also called "spam," is both a nuisance to Internet users and a threat to network security. Lawsuits have been somewhat successful in addressing the most extreme instances of spamming, and a number of jurisdictions have enacted specific laws in an attempt to regulate spam. But legal approaches in general seem to have been no more successful than technical responses to the spam problem, and the primary result to date is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding spam. Ultimately, a consensus approach that coordinates legal and technical responses is likely to provide the only effective solution.

Issue no. 189 - 5 March 2001

• eBay sellers say new anti-spam system is backfiring (CNET News.com)
  eBay's new e-mail system, which was designed to limit the amount of junk mail sent to its members, is instead forcing some sellers to weed through stacks of unsolicited e-mail to find legitimate messages from bidders.

Issue no. 187 - 17 February 2001

• USA - Porn Spam Suit Shakes Industry (Interactive Week)
  A lawsuit brought by America Online against one of the Internet's biggest porn site operators could have far-reaching implications for the $1 billion online adult industry. The suit, filed Dec. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, charges Cyber Entertainment Network (CEN) and scores of affiliated Webmasters with a massive and ongoing unsolicited e-mail campaign aimed at AOL's 27 million members.

• Germany - T-Online gibt im Prozess um Werbe-Mails klein bei (Hiese)
  In einer Auseinandersetzung um unerwünschte Werbe-E-Mails hat die Telekom-Tochter T-Online klein beigegeben. Der Münchner Anwalt Olaf Jansen hatte gegen unaufgefordert zugeschickte T-Online-Werbung Klage eingereicht. Noch bevor es vor dem Oberlandesgericht München zu einer mündlichen Verhandlung kam, verpflichtete sich T-Online, dem Kläger keine unaufgeforderten Werbe-Mails mehr zuzuschicken.

Issue no. 186 - 3 February 2001

• EU - Junk mail costs net users $9bn (FT)
  Internet users worldwide are paying an estimated E10bn ($9bn) a year in connection costs to receive junk e-mails, according to a study for the European Commission. The study looks at the phenomenon of spam in the US and European Union and assesses how different countries deal with it.

Issue no. 185 - 27 January 2001

• Groups Clash Over Hotmail Spam Filters (internetnews.com)
  Anti-spam activists came to the defense of MSN Hotmail, after Microsoft's Web-based e-mail service was criticized for the unauthorized blocking of some outgoing as well as incoming messages in its fight against junk email. Like many Internet service providers, Hotmail subscribes to the Realtime Blackhole List(RBL), a spam filtering service provided by the non-profit Mail Abuse Prevention Systems(MAPS). But Hotmail is accused of being too heavy-handed in its use of the RBL by Peacefire, an anti-censorship site.

Issue no. 184 - 20 January 2001

• Infamous Spammer Spammed (Wired)
  In what some see as a perfect example of the evidence of cosmic retribution, an avalanche of spam has crashed British Internet service provider Pipex's servers, and stopped delivery of e-mail to its million-plus users for a week.

Issue no. 183 - 14 January 2001

• USA - Federal Agencies, State Attorneys General crack down on spam (Press Release)
  As part of Project Mailbox IV, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and its federal and state law enforcement partners brought hundreds of actions in the past year against scam artists who used the mail, unsolicited faxes and e-mail "spam" to bilk millions of dollars out of consumers and businesses.

Issue no. 182 - 20 December 2000

• Judge Blocks Whois Spam (Wired)
  A federal judge ordered Web hosting firm Verio to stop using customer contact information housed in domain name registrar Register.com's Whois database to carry out a massive telephone and e-mail market campaign.

Issue no. 178 - 19 November 2000

• 24/7 Media Snags Restraining Order Against MAPS (Internetnews.com)
  Exactis - which delivers mass e-mail to recipients based on lists provided by clients - succeeded in getting a temporary restraining order against anti-spam non-profit Mail Abuse Prevention System. The order prohibits MAPS from listing mail servers belonging to Exactis on MAPS' Realtime Blackhole List of e-mail servers used by spammers, which many of the largest national ISPs use to determine whether to block incoming e-mail addressed to their subscribers.

Issue no. 176 - 5 November 2000

• AT&T admits spam offense after contract exposed (CNET News.com)
  AT&T acknowledged that it had violated its own spam policy by providing Web-hosting services to a purported sender of unsolicited commercial email

Issue no. 173 - 15 October 2000

• Judge allows case against spam blacklist to proceed (Mercury News)
  A judge ruled that Black Ice could pursue its claims against Mail Abuse Prevention System, an anti-spam organization, saying the company's allegation that it was damaged by being listed as a spammer has some merit. Under attack from firms that have wound up on its so-called "Blackhole List" of junk e-mailers, MAPS filed suit this spring seeking a definitive ruling from a California court that its practices did not violate any laws. see also MAPS Legal Defense Fund.

Issue no. 170 - 24 September 2000

• UK Government Opts-out of Regulating Spam (Simmons & Simmons)
  The Government has decided against legislating in relation to spam e-mails, opting to rely on voluntary system.

Issue no. 166 - 30 July 2000

• USA - eBay Cans Spammers (internet news)
  eBay was awarded a $1.2 million judgement against ReverseAuction.com. The decision additionally prohibits ReverseAuction.com from using software robots or "bots" to harvest eBay e-mail addresses and sending unsolicited e-mail to eBay users.

Issue no. 165 - 22 July 2000

• Australians Charged Over Spamming Incident (Newsbytes)
  An Australian man pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court to charges related to the sending of mass commercial e-mail, or spam, and bulletin board postings to millions of Internet users.

• USA - Yesmail Gets Restraining Order Against MAPS Blacklist (Direct)
  Yesmail.com, a Chicago-based permission marketer, won a temporary restraining order against Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC (MAPS).

Issue no. 160 - 17 June 2000

• USA - House Committee Passes Anti-Spam Bill (Newsbytes)
  The House Commerce Committee unanimously approved Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2000 aimed at stemming the flow of unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Issue no. 159 - 11 June 2000

• USA - Court kills key parts of bulk email law (CNET News.com)
  A California state law aimed at reining in unsolicited bulk email is unconstitutional, a judge ruled. The decision in Ferguson vs. Friendfinder marks the second time a state anti-spam law has been struck down. In March, Washington state's anti-spam law, one of the strongest in the country, was ruled unconstitutional. That case is on appeal.

• Consumer watchdogs fail the Spam Test (The Register)
  Internet consumers in Europe have been cheated and let down by the very organisations established to protect them, The Register has discovered. Instead of standing up for consumers who use the Net and lobbying governments on their behalf, these so-called consumer groups have sat on their hands and effectively done nothing about the scourge of the Net, spam.

Issue no. 157 - 28 May 2000

• AOL error underscores spam filter challenge (CNET News.com)
  Email list service Topica sent its usual battery of electronic newsletters but AOL's computers mistakenly identified the mailings as a wave of unsolicited bulk email, or "spam." Many of AOL's subscribers have applauded the company for installing email filters that can drastically cut down on the junk email that bombards their in-boxes. But some companies, such as Topica, say that many legitimate messages also are being shut out.

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