AOL launches multi-million anti-spam lawsuit

AOL has launched a legal offensive against spammers, filing five lawsuits and claiming $10m in damages.

The five companies AOL has targeted are allegedly responsible for sending AOL members around one billion items of spam - generating around eight million complaints, according to a report in the Washington Post.

AOL is the world's largest ISP with 27 million customers in the US alone. As such it is commonly a victim of spammers who use software to generate thousands of random email addresses containing '@aol.com' knowing the success rate will be higher than almost any other mail address.

The worldwide us of @hotmail.com addresses has seen users of MSN's service similarly targeted. However, the fact that AOL is a paid-for service arguably places a greater onus on the company to crack down the spam which plagues its users inbox.

Recent findings show that porn - or solicitations to use porn sites or phone lines, scams, financial services and product offers - make up the majority of spam email.

Although there are many tools available to combat the problem of spam, the organisations and individuals sending the unwanted mail are increasingly updating their methods and their pitches to avoid detection by such filters.