mail servers, served legal papers on suspected spammer Ronald Alvin of TCPS Inc. at his home in Brooklyn. Alvin allegedly used forged Juno e-mail addresses to market adult videos. Juno vice president Richard Buchband said, "They [TCPS] went to great lengths to make themselves unavailable to the public. Alvin used a complex system of rented mailboxes, unlisted phone numbers and false addresses to avoid being discovered." \n Juno first filed suit in May in Federal Court in Manhattan against TCPS and Alvin's affiliated firm, Financial Planning Associates, but it has taken Juno this long to trace the operation to Brooklyn. Juno accused Alvin of running a business that sent several million spam messages with false Juno accounts listed as the return address. Juno has successfully sued spammers for this type of misuse in the past. One of the messages sent to millions contained the subject line, "Astounding World Record Sex," and advertised videos like World's Biggest Gang Bang and World's Biggest Gang Bang II. \n Using an address contained in many of the spam messages, Juno's lawyer, John Lovi, traced Alvin to a Manhattan mail station that received mail for Alvin, TCPS and Financial Planning Associates. When asked for the account information on that mailbox, the owner of the mail station stated he would not release the information without subpoena, which Lovi served him. The account information led to Alvin and his home in Brooklyn, where Alvin was served with papers on August 25th. Lovi states that Alvin has until September 15th to respond to the court papers. \n If the case goes to trial, Lovi says he is confident that Juno will prevail and will be able to collect damages. Lovi stated that Juno should be able to recover a large award due to the number of messages Alvin sent. The suit is seeking $1 million in punitive damages against Alvin for hurting Juno's reputation, trademark infringement, false designation of origin, fraud, and unjust enrichment. The suit also requests a permanent injunction against Alvin and TCPS. \n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We here at AVNonline applaud Juno's action. Using false return email addresses is far worse an infraction than poor netiquette. It is fraud. AOL and Hotmail are on the anti-spam bandwagon and are getting serious with spammers as well. We expect to hear of more cases like this one in the very near future. There are many ways to make money on the net without clogging cyber-mailboxes with junk mail.
