The Wall Street Journal, Copyright (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Thursday, May 8, 2003

EarthLink Wins Court Judgment Against Buffalo, N.Y., SpammerBy Julia Angwin

"A federal judge awarded EarthLink Inc. $16.4 million and an injunction against Howard Carmack, a Buffalo, N.Y., resident who allegedly sent millions of e-mails from illegally obtained EarthLink Internet accounts.
In a written order, Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta granted EarthLink's motion for a permanent injunction against future spamming and its request for damages.
The judgment is the second-largest EarthLink has ever won from a spammer. Last year, the Atlanta Internet provider won a $25 million judgment against a Tennessee spammer. But these judgments often aren't collected, as the spammers usually don't have much money.
EarthLink Assistant General Counsel Karen Cashion called the ruling a victory in the company's battle against the rising tide of spam, or unsolicited junk e- mails. "It's a victory for us and our customers," she said. "We put one of the most notorious spammers on EarthLink out of business."
In his ruling, Judge Thrash found that Mr. Carmack had violated EarthLink's terms of service, trespassed on EarthLink's computer networks, and violated a federal law that makes it illegal to access someone else's computer without authorization and cause damage in doing so.
The order says Mr. Carmack can't send spam to anyone, "under penalty of criminal and civil contempt." EarthLink says as far as it knows, Mr. Carmack hasn't attempted to send spam since he was delivered a copy of the suit in April.
Mr. Carmack, 36 years old, during the past year sent more than 825 million spam e-mails on EarthLink's network, some of them making get-rich-quick pitches. EarthLink's yearlong hunt for Mr. Carmack was detailed in a front-page article in yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
"It was especially rewarding to . . . get this closure on him because of how slippery he was," said EarthLink's outside attorney Paul "Pete" F. Wellborn III. "He was one of the more difficult characters to track down that we've seen."
Mr. Carmack failed to respond to the lawsuit and failed to appear in court. Reached by phone, Mr. Carmack said he had no comment on the ruling. "