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Concentric Tells Spam King He%squots Not Welcome

Regional ISP follows AOL, CompuServe in blocking mass e-mail.

By Kristi Essick, PCWorld   

The Spam King is Sanford Wallace, president of Philadelphia-based Cyber Promotions Inc., which sends out enormous, unsolicited mass e-mailings -- or spams -- to random addresses on the Internet. Concentric, a small ISP based in Cupertino, California, fought back against the Spam King yesterday when a court issued an injunction against Cyber Promotions which prohibits the company from distributing e-mail to customers of Concentric.

Concentric said that the barrage of over a million e-mail messages that Cyber Promotions recently sent over its mail servers caused problems which prevented legitimate mail from being distributed to the company%squots 100,000 members during an 18-hour period, according to Donna Loughlin, a representative for Concentric. Under the terms of the injunction, Cyber Promotions does not have the right to use Concentric services in order to reach members, send mail to any Concentric addresses or falsely represent a message as originating from a Concentric address, according to Loughlin.

Concentric is not the first ISP to take action to spare its members the hassle of receiving e-mailings on any number of subjects, including get-rich-quick schemes, product promotions and pornography.

AOL barred Cyber Promotions from sending unsolicited e-mail to its members last month and CompuServe has retained a temporary restraining order against the company which prohibits it from making its e-mail messages look like they have come from a CompuServe address (one of the Spam King%squots tactics). CompuServe is reportedly hoping to take the issue a step further and block Cyber Promotions from sending any e-mail at all to its members and will be present at a court hearing in the Southern District of Ohio in December to discuss the case.

In September, Cyber Promotions sued AOL in September under the argument that AOL%squots block of its e-mail messages violated its rights to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, on Monday, a U.S. federal court ruled that an online marketing firm does not have a constitutional right to send unsolicited e-mail advertisements over the Internet and that America Online Inc. can legally block those e-mails.

Cyber Promotions countered Monday%squots ruling with an anti-trust lawsuit against AOL on Wednesday which alleges that the online service is engaging in unfair competition since it sends unsolicited e-mail to its members, according to the company. AOL was not available for comment on the lawsuit.