Contact: Melissa Krantz or Jeannette Boccini
The Krantz Group, Inc.
(212) 891-7235
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York, NY, September 9, 1996 -- The millions of online subscribers who have been angered by junk email wasting their time and money could be facing a future where their email becomes even more cluttered with junk than their physical mailboxes.
On Thursday September 5, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Weiner ordered America Online to stop blocking millions of junk email messages sent by Philadelphia marketing firm Cyber Promotions, pending a trial scheduled tentatively for November 12.
``This is an ominous beginning for a trial that could determine the future of junk email,'' said Maia Oja, Executive Vice President of Junkbusters Corporation. ``The question at stake is whether Americans have the right to stop unwanted solicitations sent to them through the Internet.''
Junk email, also known as ``spam,'' is widely despised on the Internet and has been used surprisingly little by the major direct marketers, considering its extremely low cost compared to direct mail and telemarketing.
The legality of junk email is presently uncertain. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 outlawed junk faxes, and some legal commentators have pointed out that its definition of a facsimile machine is so broad as to encompass any computer with a modem and printer, but expert opinion is divided.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long protected the individual's right to prevent unwanted communications from entering the home. In 1948 the Court upheld ``the right of a householder to bar, by order or notice, solicitors, hawkers, and peddlers.'' In 1970 it dismissed as ``without merit'' an appeal by direct marketers to overturn a law that prohibits them from sending solicitations to people who ask to have their names removed from mailing lists. The court decided that ``a mailer's right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee.'' Now in 1996 the question is where in cyberspace a junk emailer's right to communicate stops.
``Is this really what we want to use the Internet for--to build the biggest junk mail machine in history?'' Ms Oja continued. ``We think it should be used instead to give consumers the power to say no to the existing junk mail and telemarketing calls that they don't want.'' Junkbusters's new free service on the World Wide Web, Junkbusters Declare (SM), gives consumers a fast and easy way to create their own ``No Solicitations'' sign on Internet that covers email, mail and telemarketing. The service was launched August 12 and has already been welcomed worldwide by consumers, privacy advocates, and Internet companies. The direct marketing industry's newspaper of record, DM News, acknowledged it as innovative and possibly even beneficial to the industry. It is available at http://www.junkbusters.com on the Web.
Junkbusters is a ``virtual corporation'' whose mission is to free the people of the world from junk communications. The Delaware-registered corporation has an international team of technology and marketing specialists on three continents.