Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Earthlink charge hundreds of spammers with violating the new federal CAN-SPAM Act.
Top ISPs Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and
Earthlink filed the first major lawsuits under the new federal Controlling the
Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003, which
went into effect Jan. 1.
Together, the companies filed six
lawsuits naming hundreds of defendants in an effort to target the most egregious
spammers. The alleged spammers are all charged with direct violations of the
CAN-SPAM Act, including:
* Deceptive solicitations.
* Use of
open proxies (sending spam through third-party computers to disguise their point
of origin).
* Falsified "from" e-mail addresses (spoofing).
* Absence of a
physical address in the e-mail.
* Absence of an electronic unsubscribe
option.
For anyone who receives spam regularly
in their e-mail inbox, the spam types the defendants are accused of sending will
be annoyingly familiar. They include pitches for Super Viagra, mortgage
refinancing, prescription drugs, cable descramblers and get-rich-quick schemes,
among others. The key is that the defendants named are known to be the most
prolific and harmful of spammers targeting consumers via the ISPs’ networks, the
companies said.
For more information, view the
individual ISP releases here: Earthlink ,
AOL, Microsoft and
Yahoo.
The actual suits can be viewed
here.
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