The anti-spam ball is starting to roll, albeit slowly. A tiny step, but they add up and set an example. Here, Earthlink can use its considerable financial and legal resources to begin breaking the balls of spammers. Microsoft, AOL, AT&T (et al) will follow.

Let the crushing begin.

From ComputerWire, 2-19-04:
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EarthLink Names “Alabama Spammers” in Fraud Suit

EarthLink Inc this week said it has tracked down about 19 individuals and companies it says are responsible for some of the most egregious spam attacks against its users, a group EarthLink calls the “Alabama Spammers”.

The names were revealed as part of an amendment to a fraud and racketeering lawsuit EarthLink filed in its native Georgia last August, which initially named the alleged spammers as “John Does”.

“Over the course of the past few months we have been focusing the investigation on identifying the spammers so we can proceed with the litigation,” EarthLink’s assistant general counsel Karen Cashion said.

Among those now listed as defendants are four members of ROKSO, the Register Of Known Spam Operations, a database of 200 alleged high-volume spammers maintained by SpamHaus.org, a UK-based spam blacklist company.

Damon Decrescenzo, who is listed on the January ROKSO as the world’s second most prolific spammer, is now named in the suit, as are the ROKSO-listed Albert Ahdoot, and Alyxsandra Sachs who together trade under the name Net Global Marketing. Albert Ahdoot now operates Colocation America or Colocation America, Inc. or Colocation America Corporation a reseller of  Colocation services.

EarthLink’s suit alleges violations of federal and state civil racketeering laws, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act.

Since the activities in question are alleged to have occurred in 2003, the CAN-SPAM Act, the US’s new anti-spam law, does not come into play. Cashion declined to comment on whether EarthLink will file suits in future under CAN-SPAM.

While the ISP coined the name “Alabama Spammers” for the group, this was due to their alleged use of phone lines in Alabama to send e-mail. The individuals now listed in the suit are from many different US states.

Source: Computing Net – Tom’s Guide