http://news.com.com/2100-1024-5170631.html

ISP hammers Bob Vila site
with spam suit

By Matt
Hines

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Story last modified March 5, 2004, 9:28 AM PST

An Internet service provider filed a lawsuit against the operator and
marketer of home improvement Web site BobVila.com for violating terms of the
federal Can-Spam Act.

In the claim, filed
Thursday in U.S. District Court of California, Net service provider Hypertouch
accused BVWebTies, the company that owns and operates BobVila.com, and one of
its partners, BlueStream Media, of breaching guidelines of the Can-Spam
Act by sending the ISP and its customers "unwanted and unsolicited"
e-mail that advertised a newsletter being distributed by the Web site.

Among other complaints,
Hypertouch, which is based in Foster City, Calif., claimed that BobVila.com
sent 41 different e-mail
messages bearing "materially false or misleading" headers, or
subject lines, to trick people into reading the correspondence.

Neither
BVWebTies nor BlueStream Media immediately returned calls seeking comment on
the lawsuit.

Passed in December 2003,
the Can-Spam Act was meant to help regulate spam by threatening various forms
of punishment, including possible prison sentences, against individuals and
companies responsible for sending unsolicited
e-mail.

However, early indications
show the law has done
little thus far to discourage spammers.
A study released in February found that only 3 percent of bulk commercial
e-mail included a valid U.S. postal mail address for the sender and a link to
opt out of future messages, as required by the federal mandate.

Hypertouch said in its suit
that the spam sent by the defendants could be linked to no physical address and
that the parties sent the communications to randomly generated and harvested
e-mail accounts, as well as to accounts that had submitted requests to opt out
through links of other messages. Hypertouch executives labeled the e-mail
campaign tactics as classic attempts to deceive consumers and questioned
Can-Spam's ability to deter such activity.

"Most ISPs advise
their customers to never reply to spam in an attempt to opt out, because that will
only confirm for the spammer that an e-mail address is live," Hypertouch
President Joe Wagner said in a statement. "BobVila.com and BlueStream
Media's actions graphically show how harmful the Can-Spam Act is by requiring
recipients to reply to the spam they receive."

The company's legal counsel
also criticized Can-Spam, calling the legislation "an open license to spam
with very little protection for the public." However, the attorney said
Hypertouch will continue to use the law to pursue companies that are spamming
its customers. The ISP has previously gone after individuals it believes are
responsible for sending "junk faxes," a paper-based cousin of e-mail
spam, and is currently engaged in a class-action lawsuit against one person to
that end.

Some industry watchers
contend that spam
distribution has continued to grow since Can-Spam went into effect at the beginning
of this year. Approximately 60 percent of e-mail sent in January 2004 was spam,
up from 58 percent in December 2003, according to San Francisco-based
Brightmail, a spam-filtering company.