Ex-Employee of Intel Ordered to Halt E-Mails

A disgruntled former Intel Corp. employee has been ordered by a Sacramento County judge to stop sending unsolicited e-mail to current employees of the semiconductor giant.

Ken Hamidi, who operates a Web site critical of Intel and has sent e-mail diatribes to thousands of the company’s workers in recent months, was barred from sending further missives under a preliminary injunction issued last week by Superior Court Judge John R. Lewis.

The case is similar to several court battles that have emerged in recent years, pitting free speech against the ability of companies to control what is disseminated over their own internal computer networks.

Hamidi argued that his messages were a form of protected speech. But Intel attorneys said Hamidi’s messages were a form of trespass.

“Our proprietary computer system is not a public forum,” said Coeta Chambers, an attorney for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel. “We don’t permit unsolicited, mass spamming.”

The most recent of Hamidi’s e-mails had reached 30,000 Intel employees, Chambers said, and made inaccurate claims that Intel was secretly planning extensive layoffs.

Hamidi was an engineer for Intel at its operations in Folsom, Calif. He was injured while on business travel in 1992, and received workers’ compensation benefits until 1995, Chambers said. She added that Hamidi has been involved in a discrimination lawsuit against the company, but that the suit was dismissed.

Hamidi could not be reached for comment.