Company Sues Spammers in Series of Lawsuits Spurred by Member-Reported Junk Email
AOL Alleges Defendants Named in Lawsuits Are Responsible for Sending AOL Members One Billion Spam Emails, Resulting in Over 8 Million Member Spam Complaints

Dulles, VA – April 15, 2003 – America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), as part of its ongoing, comprehensive battle against spammers, today announced a sweeping series of lawsuits against individuals and companies that it alleges have repeatedly sent members high volumes of unwanted junk emails using a variety of evasive means to circumvent AOL’s spam filters.

AOL is filing five separate lawsuits against over a dozen companies and individuals, who the Company alleges are together responsible for sending an estimated one billion spam emails to AOL members and generating over 8 million individual spam complaints from members. The latest lawsuits filed by AOL are the first to leverage the complaints received by AOL from its members who are using the popular “Report Spam” button in AOL 8.0.

The defendants named in these lawsuits are alleged to have sent a variety of offensive and unwanted spam emails including: pornography; male organ growth/enlargement products; mortgage and home refinancing offers; college degrees; steroids; cable TV descrambler products; and software products. The kinds of spammers and the type of spamming named in these lawsuits are exactly representative of what AOL members face on a daily basis.

The methods alleged to have been used by the named defendants in these cases to send spam to AOL members include many of the egregious and fraudulent methods used today by spammers, such as: falsification of email addresses; purposefully and systematically evading spam filters set up by AOL and its members; and pursuing other means of spamming members that are prohibited by AOL’s published “Unsolicited Bulk Email Policy” (see www.aol.com).

Because AOL’s proprietary email network is located in Virginia, these lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria.

The following is a summary of AOL’s “Kids Only Channel Policies.” The AAC is obligated to follow these policies at all times. (from “Document Version 2.32”). All items are direct quotes, commentary is in brackets. The original document is 16 pages long. Grammar and spelling are as found in the original document. This document was prepared bu AAC Coord based on policies in effect in July, 1998.

Introduction

AOL developed The the Kids Only Channel Policies (“Policies”) to ensure a uniform consistent set of standards and practices throughout all programming and advertising areas (Rainman or web-based) targeted to kids children 12 and under on America Online, and particularly including through the Kids Only channel. AOL reserves the right to modify these Policies as necessary. Additionally, AOL expects all Partners to abide by the Children’s Advertising Review Board Unit (“CARU”) guidelines for Interactive Electronic Media (see also http://www.bbb.org/advertising/caruguid.html)

Policy PrincipleObjectivesGoals
~Provide a safe, age appropriate environment for kids in a manner appealing to both kids and parents, addressing primary industry and consumer concerns:
~Providing age appropriate content
~Protecting youth privacy, including protection from online predators
~Creating an age-appropriate marketing environment.
~Create a viable programming and business model for youth-targeted areas and partners on AOL.
~Provide a safe, age appropriate environment for kids in a manner appealing to both kids and parents;
~Create a viable programming and business model for youth targeted channels and partners on AOL.

**>> FEDERATION GREETER'S GUIDE 96.09.30 TOS SECTION

HOW TO DEAL WITH TOS PROBLEMS

It's a sad fact that part of your job is to act as a Fed Cop and stop people
from offending against TOS or the Federation Policy. Greeters are the first
line of action when someone starts misbehaving, and, except in very serious
cases or when you are very busy, generally Hosts won't intervene until you
ask them to bump or lock someone.

Please do not be afraid to pass a problem player to a Host to deal with. If
you give someone a TOS warning, and they ignore it, there's usually not much
point giving them another warning - they need to be bumped out of the game as
a wake-up call, or locked out completely.

America Online has confirmed that hackers have illegally compromised an undisclosed number of its member accounts by targeting key company employees with an email virus.   AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato declined to comment on how many accounts were affected or what kind of information was accessed by the perpetrators. He said the perpetrators gained access to the accounts when unsuspecting AOL staff downloaded virus-infected email.....