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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PoorRich who wrote (12581)	12/20/1998 11:34:00 AM
From: Jerry Miller	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13594

AOL Sues Over Spamming By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer Saturday December 19 5:52 AM ET NEW YORK (AP) - A group that allegedly hawked apricot seeds as a cancer cure in mass e-mails to America Online members has been sued by the online service. In a lawsuit filed in U.S District Court in Manhattan on Friday, America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) accused The Christian Brothers and its principal, Jason Vale, of sending millions of e-mail messages to its members. ''Wow. I did not know. That is all news to me,'' said Vale, who did not want to comment further because he had not seen the lawsuit. One source involved in the litigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said lawsuits were also to be filed in California, Florida and Ohio as part of a fresh assault on those who send unsolicited e-mails. An announcement was expected to be made Monday. Rich D'Amato, an AOL spokesman, said he could only confirm the filing of the New York lawsuit. But, the Dulles, Va.-based company has consistently used the courts to pursue those who have abused its e-mail system, D'Amato said. ''We have won substantial sums of money against spammers. They have consistently ignored requests to cease sending junk e-mails to members,'' he said. ''It is all part of a concerted effort to establish the legal precedent, give AOL some power to deal with spammers and let spammers know this won't be tolerated on AOL,'' he said. Unsolicited commercial e-mail, known as spam, has led to discussion among legislators across the country of ways to better control the practice. In the New York lawsuit, AOL, which has about 14 million subscribers, said the Queens entity put the letters ''aol.com'' into its messages, infringing on its trademark. The messages toting a ''cancer cure'' through the consumption of laetrile or apricot seeds has resulted in thousands of member complaints, led some members to cancel their AOL service and has clogged AOL computer systems, jeopardizing the company's ability to deliver other e-mail, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to deter the defendants from ''similar malicious, oppressive and fraudulent conduct in the future.'' James Rogers, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society in a four-state region including Washington, said the cancer society was not aware of anything which supports a claim that apricot seeds can cure cancer. ''We encourage people to eat five helpings of fruits and vegetables each day, but there's no proven evidence that apricot seeds help to cure or even to prevent cancer,'' Rogers said.