EarthLink E-Mails Blocked by AOL

Hundreds of thousands of e-mails sent by EarthLink Inc. customers to America Online Inc. accounts were rejected and lost over at least 10 days, EarthLink said Monday.

An AOL spokesman said software designed to restrict junk e-mail, or spam, was to blame.

After conferring Monday, the companies said the problem had been resolved.

Steve Dougherty, EarthLink’s director of systems vendor management, complained that AOL had not assigned executives at a level high enough to resolve the trouble more quickly.

He said the problem was brought to EarthLink’s attention Wednesday after some of its customers complained that e-mail sent to AOL accounts was not reaching intended recipients and that no error message was returned.

AOL said EarthLink’s estimate of how many e-mails were blocked was too high.