Folks:

In light of the difficulties that PL members using AOL have had in getting
postings, I thought this might be of interest.  It appeared today in the
"What's New" Section of the AOL Index. I noted that netcom.com was not
included in among the defendants, but that doesn't mean that it's not being
filtered out, I suppose.

Mary Krugman
_________________________________

AMERICA ONLINE FILES SUIT AGAINST THREE JUNK E-MAIL FIRMS

DULLES, VA, January 7, 1998 - America Online, Inc. yesterday filed suit
against three junk e-mail firms in its continuing battle against unsolicited
bulk e-mail, also known as "spam." The suit was filed in U.S. District Court
for the Eastern District of Virginia and seeks an injunction to prevent the
companies from continuing their practice of sending large quantities of
unsolicited junk e-mail to AOL members.  The suit also seeks damages from all
three companies.

The companies named in the suit are: IMS of Knoxville, Tennessee; Gulf Coast
Marketing of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and TSF Marketing and TSF Industries of
Riverside, California. This suit follows on the heels of a federal court
ruling in favor of AOL in its suit against junk e-mail firm Over the Air
Equipment, Inc. In that case, AOL won a court order barring Over the Air
Equipment from sending unsolicited e-mail to AOL members. Later, Over the Air
Equipment dropped its challenge to the order barring it from spamming and
agreed to pay AOL a substantial sum of money in damages. AOL's new suit builds
on the precedent established in the Over the Air Equipment case.

According to the suit, the three companies have sent America Online and its
members tens of thousands of unsolicited and unwanted e-mail messages.
Despite a demand by AOL that the companies stop sending unsolicited bulk e-
mail, each company not only refused to stop their mailings but used a number
of deceptive techniques designed to evade AOL's junk e-mail detection and
filtering mechanisms, including forging "aol.com" within their e-mail messages
so the messages falsely appear to originate from an AOL member. The suit
charges that in addition to defeating AOL's technology filters, the use of
"aol.com" creates the misperception among AOL members that AOL condones or
even permits the highly criticized practice of sending unsolicited bulk e-
mail.

AOL is also charging in this suit that TSF Marketing and TSF Industries have
violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in their harvesting of AOL screen
names.

America Online, Inc., [NYSE: AOL] based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's
leading Internet online service, with over 10 million members worldwide.  AOL,
founded in 1985, offers its subscribers a wide variety of interactive services
including electronic mail, Instant Message features, entertainment, reference,
financial information, computing support, interactive magazines and
newspapers, as well as easy access to all the services of the Internet.

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Transmitted: 01/07/98 10:02 (spam0107)