‘Spam’ Group Escalates AOL Confrontation
A fledgling business group that pledged to make public today the e-mail addresses of 1 million America Online customers said Wednesday it would instead post 5 million addresses next Thursday if the world’s largest online service refuses to cooperate in accepting unsolicited commercial mailings.
The escalation came after AOL threatened to sue the Chino, Calif.-based National Organization of Internet Commerce (NOIC) if it carried out its threat to post the e-mail addresses on its World Wide Web site. The confrontation was revealed Wednesday in The Times.
Joe Melle, president of the Internet commerce group, said the companies that belong to his 3-month-old organization would like to use e-mail to cheaply pitch products to AOL’s 10 million members. The NOIC would like to negotiate a way to send the unsolicited e-mail--commonly referred to as “spam”--with as little disruption to AOL’s network as possible. But the online service has steadfastly refused to enter into talks with the group.
AOL has successfully sued spammers in court for trespassing on its private computer network. But it is not clear whether the company would prevail against an organization that is merely publishing a list of e-mail addresses.
Indeed, the 5 million addresses are already available on CD-ROMs. Melle said it would take some time to add the 4 million e-mail addresses to his system, so the posting date was delayed by a week.
