The lawsuit, filed last month in San Francisco Superior Court,
alleges that Etracks has bombarded Morrison & Foerster's e-mail
users in California with thousands of unsolicited email
advertisements – i.e. spam.
The lawsuit is based on two California anti-spam statutes. The
first statute forbids the use of California-based equipment of an
electronic service provider, such as Morrison & Foerster, to
transmit unsolicited e-mail advertisements to the service
provider's users if the provider's policy prohibits such use of its
equipment. Even after receiving formal notice of Morrison &
Foerster's policy against spam, Etracks has sent at least 6,500
unsolicited e-mail advertisements to the law firm’s California
users.
The complaint also claims that Etracks violated a second
statute, which also regulates spam. According to the firm, Etracks
failed to include in its e-mail messages a subject line with the
legally required characters “ADV:” or “ADV:ADLT” (for
adult-oriented email messages). In addition, the lawsuit states
that Etracks failed to insert either a toll-free telephone number
or a valid return e-mail address in its e-mail messages, which
would permit recipients to instruct Etracks to send no further
spam. (These additional statutory requirements were upheld by a
California appeal court in January.)
Michael Jacobs, who is handling the case for the firm, said:
“This spam coupled with other spam is a big problem.”
The firm has asked the court to ban Etracks from sending further
spam to its e-mail addresses. The firm is also seeking damages of
$50 for each email delivered in violation of the law, up to $25,000
per day.
