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activities, but there is a difference between being involved
in an online commercial activity and using the resources of others
against their will and to the detriment of them and everyone
else."
Everett-Church grew up in Nashville, where he says he bought
his first computer with money he earned mowing lawns.
"My customers were the only people in Nashville, I think,
that had their lawn mower sending computerized invoices,"
he says.
Though he continued to play with and learn the latest computer
technology, he earned his undergraduate degree in international
relations from George Mason University in 1992. He dabbled in
politics, working on the Presidential primary campaigns of Al
Gore and Michael Dukakis, and he recently graduated from the
National Law Center at George Washington University.
While in law school, he used his self-taught computer skills
as a contractor for America Online, helping customers with technical
problems and complaints.
That's where he first tangled with Wallace.
When Wallace started spamming AOL customers, Everett-Church
said, he drew up a form letter explaining to the complaining
account holders that AOL was working to eliminate the unsolicited
messages but that they had not yet resolved the all the technical
and legal questions.
Wallace, he said, got hold of one of the letters and picked
it apart line by line, then spammed it. Shortly after that, AOL
sued Wallace.
Everett-Church emphasizes that his battles with Wallace now
are unrelated to his work for AOL.
"I don't speak for America Online on any level for any
of these things," Everett-Church said. "And professionally
and personally, I have some real concerns about the approach
that America Online is taking."
AOL, he noted, favors a competing anti-spam bill pending in
Congress.
In addition to the Smith bill in the House, there are two
junk e-mail bills pending in the Senate. One by Senator
Frank Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, would require that
all commercial e-mail be labeled "advertisement," making
it easier for computer users and Internet service providers to
filter out the messages. It would also require that the sender
correctly and clearly identify himself so that people could easily
find and contact the source of the e-mail.
America Online is supporting yet another anti-spam bill, by
Senator Robert Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey,
which would apply to all mass mailings, not just commercial messages.
It, too, would require that the sender clearly identify himself
and honor removal requests, but it has no labeling requirements.
It would establish a consortium of industry representatives to
regulate spam, and would make it illegal for spammers to "harvest"
mailing lists from online services like America Online and CompuServe. |
ASHINGTON -- Anyone with as many
enemies as Sanford Wallace might be expected to have trouble
singling out a single biggest foe. But the junk-mail king has
no trouble naming his nemesis.