The self-styled and until now, unapologetic king of internet
junkmail or 'spam', Cyber Promotions Inc's founder Sanford Wallace
has finally called it a day at has effectively been put out of
business following a victory in court by internet service provider
Earthlink Network Inc. Under a consent decree filed in Los Angeles,
Wallace's company, which is based in Dresher, Pennsylvania, has
agreed to pay Earthlink $2m. But Cyber Promotions just does not
have that sort of money, especially as fighting this particular
case has cost it an estimated $500,000 so far, at least according
to Earthlink. Wallace himself is also liable for a further $1m if
he ever tries to use Earthlink to transmit his unsolicited emails
at any time in the future, or to send them to Earthlink customers.
And he must write a letter of apology to Earthlink users, which the
company hopes to distribute today. Earthlink says the company was
"not looking for a monetary settlement," but mainly wanted Wallace
to stop what he was doing. It would not be drawn on how much, if
anything, it expects to get from his company. Wallace acted as a
bulk email clearing house organizing the distribution of millions
of emails through various ISPs and online service providers, often
using the 'spoofing' technique so that it appears that the email
comes from a customer of the same service provider. Wallace is no
stranger to the courts. In March 1996 Cyber Promotions sued America
Online Inc alleging that AOL was blocking its spam on its service
and that constituted a violation of its free speech, contravening
the First Amendment. AOL counter-sued for misappropriation of the
AOL mailing list and began blocking spam that emanated from Cyber
Promotions' domains. But Wallace fired back and got a temporary
restraining order against AOL stopping it from blocking until the
court case started by Cyber promotions was resolved. AOL got a
court order in February 1997 that limited Wallace to just five
domains from which he could send email, which could then be simply
blocked by AOL.
