Four of the largest e-mail providers in the US have sued hundreds of online marketers under a new federal law that outlaws the worst kinds of "spam" e-mail.
The lawsuits - filed by EarthLink, Microsoft, Yahoo and Time Warner unit America Online - mark the first time the law has been tested since it took effect in January.
Six suits were filed in federal courts in California, Georgia, Virginia and Washington state. They claim the defendants obscured their identities and used other deceptive tactics to send out hundreds of millions of pitches for get-rich-quick schemes, pornography and other types of spam.
Company officials said the CAN-SPAM Act, passed last year, makes their fight easier by imposing national standards and increasing penalties to force spammers out of business.
Spam accounted for 62 per cent of all e-mail in February 2004, up from 50 per cent six months earlier, according to anti-spam company Brightmail Inc. Internet providers say the unwanted traffic drives up bandwidth costs and frustrates customers.
The lawsuits invoke a wide array of federal and state laws, from trespass to trademark and organized crime statutes. But much of the behavior in question is specifically outlawed by CAN-SPAM.
Defendants falsified return addresses, routed their messages through other computers to cover their tracks, and used misleading subject lines like "important message from AOL," the lawsuits charged.
One group of defendants in Canada sent nearly 100 million messages to Yahoo customers in January alone and resold the e-mail addresses of those who asked to be taken off their mailing list, according to one lawsuit.
The defendants could not be reached for comment.