Volume I

Issue : 5: September 4, 2003

• U.S. Court of Appeals (9th Cir.) Asserts Jurisdiction over Online Retailer
• Court Limits Extraterritoriality of the U.S. Copyright Act
• Amazon.com Launches Lawsuits in U.S. and Canada to Stop Spoofing
• Property and Trade Secret Rights Outrank Free Speech Rights in DVD Copying Code Case
• Parties To Litigation Do Not Hold Copyrights Over Examination for Discovery Transcripts
• U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds Statutory Damages for Domain Registered Prior to the Enactment of ACPA
• Major U.S. ISP EarthLink Sues John Doe Spammers in B .C. and Alabama
• Defence of Misuse Extended to Suppression of Criticism in Copyright
• Online Broadcasters Sue Recording Industry (RIAA)
• Sixth Circuit Court Strikes Down Michigan Wine Law as Unconstitutional
• Saskatchewan Court of Appeal Upholds Criminal Conviction For Online Marketing Scheme
• U.S. First - North Dakota Prosecutes a Man for Gambling on the Internet
• U.S. Appeals Court (9th Cir.) Rules Massively Overbroad Subpoena For E-Mails Led to Privacy Violation

Home > Volume I > Issue 5: September 4, 2003 > Major U.S. ISP EarthLink Sues John Doe Spammers in B .C. and Alabama

Major U.S. ISP EarthLink Sues John Doe Spammers in B .C. and Alabama

On August 27, 2003, Atlanta-based ISP EarthLink Inc. filed lawsuits against 100 as yet unnamed "John Doe" defendants, based mostly in Alabama and British Columbia, for sending more than 250 million unsolicited commercial e-mail messages from e-mail addresses on EarthLink's network.

In this latest action by a major ISP against spammers, EarthLink alleges that the sophisticated rings of Alabama and British Columbia spammers used stolen credit cards, identity theft and banking fraud to fund EarthLink accounts with false names and addresses which were used to send the millions of spam messages and disguise the identities of the individual spammers. It also accuses the British Columbia spammers of connecting to EarthLink accounts as part of a large-scale "phisher" scheme in which the spam sent included advertisements for "herbal Viagra", mortgage loans, online dating services and fake websites that tricked Internet users into providing their names, addresses, credit card numbers and other sensitive information. The websites would later disappear from the Internet.

EarthLink, which has been successful in the past in suing other spammers, is seeking injunctive relief in this action, as well as over $5 million in damages for lost employee productivity and Internet bandwidth that it claims it suffered as a result of having to deal with the millions of spam emails sent by the defendants from email addresses on its network.

For additional information, visit:

http://makeashorterlink.com/