Blast from the Past: CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions (1997)
Let’s take a little stroll down email memory lane.
In the pre-CAN-SPAM era, when dial-up was still a thing and some people paid by the minute for internet access (remember that?), spammers found fertile ground in wide-open inboxes. But that also meant early legal battles were setting the tone for what was and wasn’t okay in the online world. One very important early wins against spam came in 1997, in the form of CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc.
You might not be familiar with CompuServe -- now they’re more or less only a tiny little piece of Yahoo, with an email domain or two still extant that a number of people may still be using for webmail via Yahoo Mail, but once upon a time, they were one of the biggest online service providers. Services like CompuServe and AOL began to move toward more direct internet access like we think of it today, and this included support for sending and receiving email over the internet. And with internet email, comes spam.
As alleged in the 1997 lawsuit, Cyber Promotions, led by Sanford Wallace (aka the self-described “Spam King”), was bombarding CompuServe users with massive volumes of unsolicited email. CompuServe said “cut it out,” installed tech filters to block it, and still got slammed with spam. Cyber Promotions kept sidestepping those blocks and flooding inboxes anyway. So CompuServe sued – and they didn’t use email-specific legislation (because there wasn’t any yet). Instead, they leaned on trespass to chattels: an old-school legal concept usually reserved for physical property, like, say, messing with someone’s horse or wagon in the 1800s.
CompuServe was neither the first nor last internet service provider to sue Cyber Promotions. Concentric Network, AOL and Earthlink engaged in legal battle with Sanford Wallace as well. Long before CAN-SPAM, these cases helped to shape the early legal framework that eventually led to today’s anti-spam laws. It’s a fun bit of history to revisit, if only to remember how far we’ve come since 1997.
Let’s take a little stroll down email memory lane.
You might not be familiar with CompuServe -- now they’re more or less only a tiny little piece of Yahoo, with an email domain or two still extant that a number of people may still be using for webmail via Yahoo Mail, but once upon a time, they were one of the biggest online service providers. Services like CompuServe and AOL began to move toward more direct internet access like we think of it today, and this included support for sending and receiving email over the internet. And with internet email, comes spam.
As alleged in the 1997 lawsuit, Cyber Promotions, led by Sanford Wallace (aka the self-described “Spam King”), was bombarding CompuServe users with massive volumes of unsolicited email. CompuServe said “cut it out,” installed tech filters to block it, and still got slammed with spam. Cyber Promotions kept sidestepping those blocks and flooding inboxes anyway. So CompuServe sued – and they didn’t use email-specific legislation (because there wasn’t any yet). Instead, they leaned on trespass to chattels: an old-school legal concept usually reserved for physical property, like, say, messing with someone’s horse or wagon in the 1800s.
And they won!
CompuServe was neither the first nor last internet service provider to sue Cyber Promotions. Concentric Network, AOL and Earthlink engaged in legal battle with Sanford Wallace as well. Long before CAN-SPAM, these cases helped to shape the early legal framework that eventually led to today’s anti-spam laws. It’s a fun bit of history to revisit, if only to remember how far we’ve come since 1997.
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