Spotlight: America Online Sues to Staunch ‘Spam’ Flood

America Online Inc., the No. 1 online service, filed a suit in an effort to stop its customers from being flooded with millions of unsolicited pieces of junk e-mail. The suit, filed in federal court in San Diego against Michael Persaud, alleges that he committed fraud by using various names to send millions of e-mail messages to America Online customers. The suit is one of nine recently filed by Dulles, Va.-based AOL in five different states against people who send out “spam,” a term for unwanted electronic mail.