Top Four ISPs Wrap Lawsuit Noose Around Spammer’s Necks   10/28/2004 - 1,090 views, 2 Comments

EarthLink, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo all filed lawsuits today against spammers in California, Virginia, and Washington. While it is unclear whether the timing was coordinated, who the heck cares? Good on ya, Aunty says!

EarthLink’s lawsuit, filed under CAN-SPAM, is against “the Mortgage Lead Spammers” and “the Drug Spammers” (don’t you just love it?

“EarthLink, Inc. v. the Drug Spammers”

..has a nice ring to it, dontcha think?)

As is often the case in these sorts of lawsuits, the actual names of the defendants are not yet know, and the very act of filing the lawsuit provides the legal tool necessary to allow EarthLink to subpoena, deposition, and otherwise investigate to their heart’s content in order to discover the actual names of the defendants.

Aunty would like to take a moment to go off on a small rant here. It has been Aunty’s pet peeve that from the moment that the CAN-SPAM act became law people started saying “See? It doesn’t work. They haven’t sued anybody yet, and spam is as bad as ever.”

Well of course they hadn’t sued anybody yet! It was a brand new law! After a law is passed, somebody has to break it (ok, that occurred at 00:00:01 after the act became law), and then the aggrieved parties have to start building their case from square one under that new law! They have to investigate. They have to build evidence. They have to be sure that all the Ts are crossed and the Is dotted. It is an inherent part of our legal system that you can’t, you know, effectively sue someone just because you want to, and without having built a sufficient case.

Goodness, people, it often takes months, if not years, to bring someone to trial for murder, arguably a much more compelling crime, with often less shadowy defendants and murky facts. And yet, after CAN-SPAM became law on January 1st, people expected a sudden rush of CAN-SPAM lawsuits on January 2nd, and adjudged the new law a failure when there were no convictions by January 3rd.

Anyways, EarthLink, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo, you’re doing good, and Aunty sends you a big kissy kissy.

Aunty