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Newsgroup Sysops Just Say No to Spam

A group of Usenet vigilantes has taken on large Internet backbone provider UUNET, who they claim is lax with spammers.

By Brian McWilliams, PCWorld   

As you may have heard, last Friday a group led by a man in Virginia began using their administrative privileges to cancel any newsgroup postings from UUNET addresses. It was part of a protest aimed at getting UUNET to tighten up its policies regarding the use of its resources for posting ads in Usenet newsgroups.

The group had claimed that UUNET was lax in tracking down spammers, who were using UUNET accounts as their primary conduit for posting ads simultaneously to hundreds of discussion groups.

The protesters lifted their so-called Usenet Death Penalty late Wednesday, after UUNET said it took measures to prevent Usenet spammers from violating its acceptable use policies.

But a UUNET spokesperson told NewsRadio today that the ISP believes the protesters acted illegally in canceling Usenet postings from UUNET subscribers, and UUNET is pursuing legal actions against them.

Internet author John Levine says UUNET should be commended for moving against spammers, but he thinks it%squots misguided for the company to go after the group that woke them up to the problem.

According to Levine, a similar vigilante protest against PSInet last year helped push that ISP to kick Usenet spammers off its service. But while the latest efforts have drastically reduced the number of ads clogging up newsgroups in recent days, Levine says many spammers will simply go find a new ISP.