Wired: Suing the Pants Off Spammers

Wired interviewed Earthlink's chief privacy officer about whether or not its efforts to "sue the pants off spammers" is working. The Internet service provider has teamed up with Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo in suing hundreds of alleged spammers. The Earthlink official didn't claim that the suits would stop spam, but said the company hoped these deterrent effects would make spam manageable.

When asked whether it would make better sense for the companies to instead agree among themselves on a technical solution, he revealed that this was the agenda that initially brought them together. So far, they've been able to come to more agreement in litigation strategy than technology strategy.