Brian Morrissey

Missouri’s attorney general announced on Thursday the first lawsuits under that state’s new anti-spam law. The suits, filed in St. Louis City Circuit Court, stem from the anti-spam law Missouri enacted in late August. The law requires that commercial senders carry an “adv:” label and comply immediately with unsubscribe requests. It defines spam as any […]

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has again delayed the release of e-mail guidelines from its subsidiary, the Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM). “We’re still working on them,” said Louis Mastria, a DMA spokesman. “We will put this out in due course.” Mastria said the DMA was still evaluating the document and did not have a […]

The spam problem has gotten so bad that it threatens to overwhelm e-mail as an effective communications medium, according to Microsoft founder Bill Gates. In an open letter posted on the Microsoft Web site on Tuesday, Gates said Microsoft took the spam problem seriously and would work on multiple fronts to fight it, including improved […]

While the spam problem receives plenty of press coverage and popular attention, the real challenge for marketers is finding new ways to engage customers increasingly wary from their daily bombardment with marketing materials, according to Hans Peter Brøndmo. Brøndmo, a fellow at e-mail consultancy Digital Impact and columnist for IAR sister publication ClickZ, told interactive […]

America Online has expanded its legal assault on unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail flooding its 27 million members’ in-boxes, filing a handful of lawsuits against spammers the company says are responsible for 8 million customer complaints. The five suits are against 12 companies and individuals and seek a total of $10 million in damages. They are […]

U.S. Senators introduced a bill designed to crack down on the growing problem of unsolicited bulk e-mail on Thursday, giving further evidence that a federal role in combating spam is inevitable. Montana Sen. Conrad Burns and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden are co-sponsors of the bill, which is largely similar to acts they introduced in previous […]

Maryland anti-spam activist Francis Uy claimed victory in his quest to out a Maryland man he says is responsible for huge quantities of unsolicited bulk e-mail, after winning a court case related to his posting of the man’s personal information on his Web site. George Moore, a Linthicum, Md., resident, accused Uy of harassment for […]

The California Senate inched closer to significantly tightening state laws targeting spammers Monday, when a Senate committee passed a bill that would fine e-mail marketers for each piece of unwanted commercial mail sent to consumers. The bill, introduced by Sen. Debra Bowen, would prohibit e-mail marketers from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to state residents. The […]

Just two weeks after reporting progress in its war on spam, AOL told e-marketers that spam levels had doubled in the last six months and the AOL Time Warner Internet unit would soon block over a billion unsolicited bulk e-mail messages a day. AOL’s assistant general counsel, Charles Curran, told attendees at DoubleClick’s Insight conference […]

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer hailed a decision by a Manhattan Supreme Court to enjoin accused spammer MonsterHut from falsely representing its e-mail marketing messages. Justice Lottie Wilkins’ ruling forbids Niagara Falls, N.Y.-based MonsterHut and its two top executives from “further engaging in any of the fraudulent, deceptive and illegal acts and practices” relating […]