Thursday, February 20, 1997

'Spam King' says he's opening own Internet provider to cater to spammers

By REID KANALEY / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA - Like the advertising e-mail, also known as "spam," for which he has become famous for spewing across the Internet, Sanford Wallace is back again, uninvited.

He's been beaten down in the courts, banned from CompuServe and, until recently, at odds with America Online. But now, Wallace has a new idea that can only mean one thing for the citizens of cyberspace:

More junk e-mail.

The president of Philadelphia's Cyber Promotions Inc. announced that he intends to flaunt "netiquette," the unwritten rules of online behavior, by launching the country's first Internet service that caters to spammers.

For the first time, senders of bulk e-mail "will be able to dial into a network without the risk of having their accounts terminated," Wallace said Tuesday.

The new service will roll out March 17 in the Philadelphia area, with hopes of expanding to other cities, he said.

Most online services and Internet service providers, those companies that offer individuals a phone-line connection to cyberspace, prohibit bulk e-mailings outright, or threaten to cut off customers who generate too many complaints with their mass mailings.

Ron Brandt, vice president of VoiceNet, a large local Internet provider in the Philadelphia area, said his company ejects a flagrant spammer about every other month, and once even terminated an account held by Wallace.

Wallace said he hopes to steer many of his existing 7,500 clients to his new service. For about $50 a month, customers will be able to send out mailings of any size, to anyone they choose, as often as they like, he said.

Cyber Promotions' current fees range from $50 for a three-line ad that is packaged with 50 other ads in a single mailing, to $2,500 for a one-time, 40-line "exclusive" mailing to the 2.4 million e-mail addresses Wallace has amassed.

He said he was offering the same difference between providing an advertiser with commercial time on television and "giving them their own television station."

Since opening his business in 1994, Wallace, 28, has gained a national reputation as the "Spam King." His critics are legion. They contend that bulk e-mail invades privacy; costs computer network owners and recipients money to transmit, store and read; and is downright impolite.

There is a long, sarcastic poem to Wallace posted on the World Wide Web titled "Please, Mr. Wallace, Please Send Me Some Spam."

"If there are people who are interested in receiving bulk e-mail, he can do business with them. But for all the rest of us who just want peace and quiet ... we deserve our privacy," said Ram Avrahami of Arlington, Va., who has collected 6,000 signatures on a petition asking for legislation to curb junk e-mail.

Some critics say unsolicited e-mail should be deemed illegal under the same federal regulations that prohibit unsolicited faxes.

Private Citizen, a 2,000-member junk-mail-fighting organization in Naperville, Ill., has set up a World Wide Web page (http://www.ctct.com) where those who wish to be removed from Cyber Promotions' mailing list can leave their e-mail addresses.

Wallace said he is cooperating with Private Citizen and will honor the removal requests.