AOL sues instant message spammers.America Online See AOL. Inc. has filed a federal lawsuit accusing numerous unnamed defendants of violating federal and state laws by sending bulk messages known as "spim" to instant message accounts and Internet chat rooms. The lawsuit marked the first time AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. has expressly targeted spim in a legal action. AOL and its Anti-Spam Alliance partners--EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.--also said that they had filed another series of lawsuits targeting spam E-mail that is not requested. Also known as "unsolicited commercial e-mail" (UCE), "unsolicited bulk e-mail" (UBE), "gray mail" and just plain "junk mail," the term is both a noun (the e-mail message) and a verb (to send it). . The lawsuits accuse defendants of violating laws including the federal CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003) A U.S. statute effective January 1, 2004 that allows spammers to be fined up to $6 million. Act. www.msnbc.msn.com |
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