MEMORANDUM OPINION

This action involves claims of violations of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) et seq. (Counts I and II), violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (a) (Counts III and IV), violations of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act, Va. Code § 18.2-152.3 (Count V), and common law claims of trespass to chattels (Count VI) and conspiracy to commit trespass to chattels and violate federal and state statutes (Count VII).

On November 6, 1998, the defendants were declared in default because of discovery abuses. The action was thus tried on the issue of damages only. The trial was to the court and occurred on January 7, 1999. Decision was reserved to enable the court to read certain deposition transcripts and to enable the plaintiff to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, with an opportunity for the defendants to respond to the plaintiff’s proposal. This has all now been accomplished and the matter is ready for decision.

At trial, the defendants called no witnesses but contented themselves with cross-examination of the plaintiff’s witnesses. Similarly, in response to the plaintiff’s proposed findings of fact, the defendants have not challenged any of the proposed findings, but have argued only that the damages claimed are speculative or for other reasons ought not to be awarded. Because the plaintiff’s proposed findings of fact are not challenged, and because they are supported by evidence in the record, the court adopts them largely as submitted.

The only remaining issue is what relief should be awarded. The court rejects the defendants’ argument that the damages claimed are speculative or unwarranted. The court finds that there should be awarded actual damages in the amount of $165,360, which have resulted from the defendants’ unlawful use of "aol.com" in their unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE) advertisement, and from the hardware processing costs the plaintiff has incurred because of the defendants’ UBE. Because the defendants’ acts were knowing and willful, the actual damage will trebled, in accordance with the Lanham Act, to $496,080. The trebling is warranted because the damages are hard to quantify, but obviously real, and there is a definite need for a deterrent. However, the court will not, based on the evidence before it1, add any amount to the actual damages so as to include as a part of such damages a reasonable royalty rate.

In addition, the plaintiff is entitled to a disgorgement of the profits the defendants have made and continue to make throughout their infringing activity. The defendants have apparently concluded that the $0.00078 per e-mail, which formed the basis of calculation of actual damages in an earlier case in this court, can be absorbed as a cost of doing business. Thus, they have continued to engage in the infringing activities despite an earlier adverse ruling. The evidence as to defendants’ bank deposits reveals that during the eleven month period from June 1997 to April 1998, $1,323,783 was deposited. This figure represents gross deposits and it is reasonable to infer that they were from gross sales from defendants’ UBE. The defendants have come forward with no evidence of any expenses, cost of sales or other deductions to arrive at a net figure. Indeed, the defendants have refused to produce any document related to profits, income or expenses of email advertising, and the plaintiff secured the bank records with a third party trial subpoena, and that only after overcoming the difficulty presented when the defendants would not reveal the name of their bank.

The plaintiff is also entitled to injunctive relief. Defendants infringing and unlawful activities continued after they were declared in default, through December, 1998, and indeed until a few days before trial. (PX10) Damages are inadequate. An injunction barring the activities as outlined in paragraph 8 of the plaintiff’s proposed conclusions of law, will be awarded.

An award of attorneys’ fees and costs is also warranted. The evidence that the defendants acted in bad faith is all but overwhelming.

No objection has been made by the defendants to the amount of fees and costs claimed. An examination of the fee request reveals that the hourly rates charged by the attorneys involved are reasonable as are the number of hours expended. Multiplying these two factors results in a presumptively reasonable fee. Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 897 (1984)2. The other factors enumerated in Barber v. Kimbell’s, Inc., 577 F.2d 216, 226 n.28 (4th Cir. 1981), warrant no adjustments. Fees in the amount of $117,847 and costs in the amount of $8,257 will be awarded.

Interest will accrue on the awards from January 7, 1999.

Conclusion

Judgment will be awarded against the defendants, jointly and severally, as follows;

Actual damages, trebled     $496,080
Disgorgement damages   $1,323,783
Total damages                $1,819,863

Attorneys’ fees and costs   $126,104

An injunction barring future infringing activity is this day entered.

Albert V. Bryan, Jr.,
United States District Judge
Alexandria, Virginia
February 10th, 1999

FN(1) The plaintiff was precluded at trial from calling an expert witness who would have supported the royalty claim.

FN(2) Although Blum was an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the court finds its approach to a determination of reasonable attorneys’ fees to be appropriate here.

ORDER

For the reasons set forth in the Memorandum Opinion this day filed and the findings of fact attached as Appendix A, it is ORDERED that:

1. Judgment is awarded in favor the plaintiff, America Online, Inc., against the defendants, CN Productions, Inc., and Jay Nelson, jointly and severally on Counts I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII of the complaint, in the amount of $1,819,863.

2.  Judgment is awarded in favor of the plaintiff against the defendants, jointly and severally, in the amount of $126,104 for attorneys’ fees and costs.

3.  The court this day enters the attached injunction.

Albert V. Bryan, Jr.,
United States District Judge
Alexandria, Virginia
February 10^th, 1999

A. America Online’s (AOL) Business

1. AOL, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Dulles, Virginia, owns and operates a proprietary, content-based online service which affords its Members access to the Internet and the capability to send and receive electronic mail with other AOL Members and with non-AOL Members over the Internet. Testimony of Jay Levitt; Defendants’ Default Admission of ¶ 4 of America Online’s Complaint [hereinafter "Default Admission"]. The ability to send and receive e-mail is one of AOL’s most popular features. Testimony of Levitt; Testimony of A. Douglas Steinberg.

2. In connection with its products and online services, AOL has used the initials "AOL" as a trademark and as a service mark since October 1989. Default Admission, ¶ 5. AOL has registered this mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and has invested substantial resources to promote and protect its products and services using this mark. Default Admission, ¶¶ 5-6. AOL has also registered its mark with the InterNIC as part of its registration of the "aol.com" Internet domain name. AOL uses the domain name "aol.com" as a source identifier of its online services. Default Admission, ¶ 7.

B. AOL’s E-Mail System

3. On average over the past year, AOL has received between 2.4 and 3 billion e-mail messages each month coming from the Internet addressed to AOL Members. Testimony of Steinberg. This volume of Internet e-mail is increasing over time, and at a faster rate than the rate at which AOL is adding new Members to its service. Testimony of Steinberg. Five percent to thirty percent of these Internet e-mail messages are unsolicited bulk e-mail advertisements ("UBE") . Testimony of Steinberg.

4. All e-mail, including UBE, that is received by AOL from the Internet must be sorted, delivered and stored by AOL’s Internet mail servers. Testimony of Steinberg. These mail servers are dedicated computers located in Reston, Virginia. Default Admission, ¶ 30; Testimony of Steinberg. AOL’s Internet mail servers have a finite processing speed and memory capacity that limit their ability to receive, sort, deliver and store e-mail. Testimony of Steinberg.

5. AOL incurs considerable costs to receive, sort, deliver and store e-mail messages sent to AOL Members from the Internet. Testimony of Steinberg; Default Admission, ¶ 24. During the times relevant to this lawsuit, AOL’s Internet e-mail delivery system was compromised of computer equipment valued at approximately $85,000,000. Testimony of Steinberg. Based upon the standard four-year lease term applicable to AOL’s computer equipment the monthly expense for the computers that compromised AOL’s Internet e-mail delivery system is $2,340,000. Id. Based on these figures, the lowest per recipient equipment cost of processing Internet e-mail is $.00078 ($2,340,000 monthly equipment cost divided by 3 billion recipients per month). Id. This $.00078 per recipient cost does not include overhead expenses such as office space, software licenses, bandwidth, personnel costs, or utilities. Id.

C. Problems Caused By UBE

6. During the past 18 months, AOL’s Internet e-mail delivery system has been disrupted by the transmission of UBE through AOL’s e-mail servers to AOL Members. Testimony of Levitt and Steinberg; Default Admission, ¶¶ 30-3G. UBE diverts computer processing resources away from the handling of authorized e-mail for AOL Members. Testimony of Steinberg; Default Admission, ¶ 31. UBE depletes the finite processing and storage capacity of AOL’s mail servers. Testimony of Steinberg; Default Admission, ¶¶ 30-32, 35. UBE has caused measurable delays in the delivery of Internet e-mail to AOL’s Members. Testimony of Steinberg. Because of the effect of UBE on AOL’S e-mail system, AOL has been forced to invest resources in new hardware, software and personnel in an effort to maintain the performance capacity of AOL’s e-mail system. Testimony of Steinberg.

7. UBE often contains false information with respect to the point of origin, the transmission path, the subject of the email and other information regarding the source of the e-mail message. Testimony of Levitt; Default Admission, ¶¶ 38, 41-43. UBE is transmitted in large quantities to lists of e-mail addressees that contain a significant number of invalid and undeliverable addresses. Testimony of Levitt and Steinberg. Because of these characteristics of UBE, AOL must expend additional processing power and memory capacity in order to receive, sort, deliver and store USE. Testimony of Steinberg. When AOL receives an e-mail message that contains false information regarding its source and transmission path, and an invalid AOL addressee, AOL’s mail servers unsuccessfully try to deliver the e-mail message to the non-existent AOL addressee, and then unsuccessfully try to return the e-mail message to its point of origin so that the sender can know that the message was not successfully delivered. Testimony of Levitt and Steinberg; Default Admission, ¶ 32. The transmission to AOL of UBE containing false source and transmission path information and invalid recipient addresses causes similar, ripple-effect problems across the Internet, as AOL attempts to return such messages to their source. Testimony of Steinberg. The transmission of UBE is widely condemned in the Internet community. Default Admission, ¶ 27.

8. The receipt of UBE is the number one complaint that AOL Members have about AOL’s e-mail system. Testimony of Levitt; Default Admission, ¶¶ 35-36. The receipt of UBE angers AOL Members and damages AOL’s business, its business reputation, and goodwill. Testimony of Levitt; Default Admission, ¶¶ 35-36.

D. AOL’S Efforts to Stop UBE

9. AOL has adopted policies that bar the transmission of UBE from the Internet to AOL Members. Exhibit 8, AOL’s Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail Policy and Terms of Service; Testimony of Jay Levitt. AOL’s Terms of Service (which apply to all AOL Members) states (in part) that AOL Members may not "post or transmit, or cause to be posted or transmitted, any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or other forms of solicitation to other Members, individuals or entities, except in those areas that are expressly designated for such a purpose (e.g., the classified areas) . . . ." Exhibit 8, numbered page 5. AOL’s Unsolicited Bulk E-mail Policy (which applies to AOL Members and non-Members and is publicly available on the Internet) states (in part) that AOL "does not authorize the use of its proprietary computers and computer network (‘the AOL Network’) to accept, transmit or distribute unsolicited bulk e-mail sent from the Internet to AOL members." Exhibit 8, page 1.

10. AOL maintains an electronic mailbox (TOSSpam@aol.com) that was established in August 1996 to receive complaints from AOL Members regarding USE. Testimony of Levitt and Histand. In the past year, AOL Members have forwarded between 100,000 and 200,000 complaints per day regarding UBE which has been sent to them. Id. The contents of the TOSSpam mailbox are periodically downloaded into a series of databases maintained by AOL, in order to permit the mailbox to receive new complaints without filling up. Testimony of Levitt and Histand. The TOSSpam database presently contains hundreds of millions of Meter complaints concerning UBE sent over the Internet. Testimony of Histand. Because the database has limited hard-drive storage capacity, only the most recent portion of the entire database can be maintained on hard-drive at any one time. The remaining, less recent portion of the database is saved to magnetic tape. Currently, complaints received into TOSSpam from December 1, 1997 to the present are maintained on the hard-drive. Complaints received into TOSSpam prior to December 1, 1997 have been archived on tape. That portion of the database that is maintained on the hard-drive is fully text-searchable. The archived portion of the database is not readily searchable in full. Testimony of Histand.

11. If an AOL member wishes to complain about a particular piece of UBE, that Member must affirmatively forward the e-mail to TOSSpam. Testimony of Levitt and Histand. In order for this to happen, the AOL Member must: (1) technically know how to forward the message; (2) know the e-mail address to which to forward the complaint (TOSSpam); and (3) take the time necessary to forward the message. Testimony of Histand.

12. The TOSSpam database does not contain every UBE message received by AOL Members, and it does not contain any UBE messages that could not be delivered to an AOL Member because of invalid addresses. Testimony of Histand. The database contains only those e-mails actually received by AOL Members that have actually been forwarded to TOSSpam. Thus, the number of complaints in the TOSSpam database is a fraction of the total number of unsolicited e-mail messages actually transmitted to AOL Members. A reasonable calculation of the ratio between the number of complaints received by TOSSpam and the total number of unsolicited e-mail messages transmitted to an AOL Member is 1:500. This ratio is derived from the actual complaint to total e-mail ratios (1:250 and 1:1000) that have been established in two prior anti-spam lawsuits filed by AOL in this Court. Testimony of Histand.

E. Defendants’ Business

13. Defendants Jay Nelson and CN Productions, Inc. ("‘CN Productions") own and operate Internet web sites, registered with InterNIC, at which they make available, for a fee, a variety of adult entertainment products and services. Exhibit 5, InterNIC List of Domain Names; Testimony of Histand; Default Admission, ¶¶ 1, 9-11; InterNIC Domain Name Registrations attached to Answer of CN Productions to Modified Requests for Documents; Exhibits 4 & 7, Screen shots of web pages; Deposition Transcript of Jay Nelson, at 27 (refusing to answer questions regarding ownership of domain names listed in ¶ 9 of Complaint, on Fifth Amendment grounds).

F. Defendants’ Transmission of UBE to AOL Members

14. Defendants have repeatedly and knowingly transmitted unsolicited bulk e-mail messages advertising their products and services through AOL’s mail servers to AOL Meters. Testimony of Levitt and Histand; Default Admission, ¶ 37; Exhibit 3, TOSSpam Member Complaints Containing Advertisements for Defendants Internet Domains; Unnumbered Exhibit, Deposition Transcript of CN Productions’ Rule 30(b) (6) Designee, at 24-25 (refusing to answer questions regarding transmission of bulk e-mail, on Fifth Amendment grounds) - These UBE advertisements contain embedded hyper-text links that, when clicked upon, cause a viewer to be taken to one of Defendants’ web sites. Testimony of Levitt and Histand.

15. Defendants have repeatedly and knowingly transmitted UBE containing false information regarding the source, transmission path and subject of the message in order to evade AOL’s bulk e-mail filtering system. Defendants used "aol.com" in the "to," "from" and "reply to" lines, placed invalid user names in the "from" and "reply to" lines (such as "XmasSantaX"), used non-existent domain names (such as "blahblahblah.com"), inserted false transmission dates, relayed their messages through third party Internet Service Providers (such as dialsprint.net), and identified the subject of their messages with greetings that did not reflect the nature of their messages (such as "Happy Holidays!"). Testimony of Levitt; Default Admission, ¶¶ 42-52; Exhibit 3, TOSSpam Member Complaints Advertising Defendants Internet Domains; Unnumbered Exhibit, Deposition Transcript of Jay Nelson at 20 (refusing to answer any questions regarding merits of lawsuit, on Fifth Amendment grounds); Unnumbered Exhibit, Deposition Transcript of CN Productions Rule 30(b) (6) Designee at 24 (refusing to answer any questions regarding merits of lawsuit, on Fifth Amendment grounds)

16. Defendants’ use of the aol.com domain name caused AOL Members to believe that AOL was connected to, affiliated with, approved of, or condoned Defendants’ transmission or the adult entertainment products and services advertised in their messages. AOL Members forwarded Defendants’ advertisements to TOSSparn, with the following complaints attached:

Lovely Crap from Santa, who apparently has become a degenerate thanks to AMERICA ONLINE!!!!!

I would think you could at least track down the sender who is a member of AOL who is using a Santa name to forward this smut through your system.

More smut in my account and this is from an AOL address. Now you HAVE to be able to stop this one, don’t you?

Unless you guys can figure a way to block this type of stuff from an aol.com site I will be forced to cancel my membership.

WHY DO YOU LET THESE PERVERTS USE AOL? WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS EVEN HAVE AN ACCOUNT WITH YOUR COMPANY? HAVE YOU NO DECENCY??????????? I DO NOT WANT ANYMORE OF THIS JUNK IN MY PERSONAL MAILBOX. IF THIS CRAP CONTINUES, I WILL CANCEL MY AOL ACCOUNT SOON- I DON’T EVEN RECEIVE SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MAIL IN MY POSTAL MAILBOX. WHY SHOULD I PUT UP WITH IT HERE?????????

Exhibit 3, TOSSpam Member Complaints Containing Advertisements for Defendants Internet Domains; Default Admission, ¶¶ 43, 47.

17. Defendants knew their transmission of UBE to AOL Members was not authorized by AOL, and was prohibited by AOL’s Terms of Service and UBE Policy. Default Admissions, ¶¶ 62, 64, 70, 76. On December 8, 1997, AOL notified Defendants Jay Nelson and CN Productions that they, along with their agents, were prohibited from transmitting UBE to AOL and its Members. Exhibit 9, Cease & Desist Letter; Default Admission, ¶ 39. After this date, Defendants continued to transmit unsolicited e-mail advertisements to AOL and its Members, and continued to use aol.com in the "from" and "reply to" lines. Testimony of Histand; Exhibit 3, TOSSpam Member Complaints Containing Advertisements for Defendants Internet Domains; Default Admission, ¶ 39.

18. Throughout the period from December 1, 1997 to April 18, 1998, a period of 139 days, AOL received 199,495 Member complaints in its TO5Spain database regarding e-mail messages which contained hyper-text links to Defendants’ web sites. Testimony of Histand; Exhibit 3, TOSSpam Member Complaints Containing Advertisements for Defendants Internet Domains; Exhibit 5, List of Internet Domains Registered to Defendants with InterNIC WHOIS Search Result. Applying the 1:500 ratio between the number of complaints forwarded to TOSSpam and the total number of UBE messages transmitted to AOL Members, Defendants transmitted an average of 717,608 UBE messages per day to AOL Members during the 139 day period from December 1, 1997 to April 18, 1998 (199,495 TOSSpam complaints multiplied by 500 USE messages per complaint, divided by 139 days). Testimony of Histand. After April 18, 1998, and before December 1998, the TOSSpam database did not receive complaints concerning e-mail messages containing direct hypertext links to Defendants’ web sites.

19. The earliest retrievable complaint in the archived TOSSpam database which contains an embedded hyper-text link to one of Defendants’ web sites is dated June 26, 1997. Testimony of Histand. Based on limited searches of the TOSSpam database stored on archive tape, TOSSpam received complaints throughout the time period from June 26, 1997 to December 1, 1997 from AOL Members regarding e-mails containing hypertext links to Defendants’ web sites. Testimony of Histand.

20. There are 297 days between June 26, 1997 and April 18, 1998. Testimony of Histand; Judicial Notice.

21. A reasonable calculation of the total number of unsolicited bulk e-mail messages transmitted by Defendants to AOL and its Members between June 26, 1997 and April 18, 1998 is in excess of 212 million (717,608 messages per day multiplied by 297 days). Testimony of Histand; Judicial Notice; AOL’s Modified Interrogatory #17 (requesting defendants to state, on a day-by-day basis, the total number of e-mail messages transmitted to AOL Members); Jay Nelson’s Response to AOL’s Modified Discovery Requests (refusing to answer Interrogatory #17, on Fifth Amendment grounds); Deposition Transcript of CN Productions’ Rule 30(b) (6) Designee, at 24-26 (refusing to answer questions regarding the transmission of bulk e-mail, on Fifth Amendment grounds).

22. Beginning in early December 1998, and continuing through January 4, 1999, AOL Members have again started to receive UBE advertisements that contain hypertext links that connect to web sites owned and maintained by the Defendants. Testimony of Histand; Exhibit 10, January 1999 Junk E-Mail Transmitted By Defendants with hypertext Links Un-Embedded. Between early December 1998 and January 4, 1999, TOSSpam has received over 190,000 Member complaints regarding e-mail messages that contain hypertext links that lead to web sites owned and maintained by the Defendants. Testimony of Histand.

G. Alternative Means of Advertising

23. Companies that utilize solicited bulk e-mail messages to advertise their products and services to an opt-in list of e-mail addresses pay anywhere between $.06 and $.30 per willing recipient. Testimony of Steinberg; Exhibit 13, Web Sites Advertising Solicited Bulk E-Mail Services and Rates. For-profit companies that elect to advertise by sending unsolicited bulk mail through the United States Postal Service pay approximately $0.17 per recipient. Exhibit 12, United States Postal Service Standard Commercial Bulk Rates. Defendants have paid no amount to AOL in exchange for the Defendants’ e-mail advertisements delivered by AOL to AOL Members. Testimony of Steinberg.

24. AOL Members who receive e-mail can see a list of their e-mail messages by clicking on the mailbox icon that appears on the AOL welcome screen. Clicking on the mailbox takes the Member to the E-mail Inbox Screen. This screen lists on a single line the date, the author, and the subject line of the e-mail message. In order to view the text of the e-mail message, an AOL Member can double click on the line. Unread e-mail messages remain in a Member’s mailbox for one month. Testimony of Levitt.

25. The E-mail Inbox Screen also contains an advertisement area consisting of a rectangular banner in the upper right hand corner of the screen. This advertisement contains text that is comparable to the subject line of an e-mail message, and, like an e-mail advertisement, is capable of directing a viewer to an Internet web site. Testimony of Levitt. Banner advertisements that appear on the E-mail Inbox screen do not require the use of AOL’s Internet e-mail servers, and impose no burden or cost on that equipment. Testimony of Steinberg.

H. Defendants’ Profits

26. During the eleven month period between June 1997 and April 1998 during which it was sending UBE to AOL members, CN Productions deposited a total of $1,323,783 into its business account (#007-000-6697) with Alpine Bank of Illinois. Exhibit 15, Alpine Bank Records. There is no evidence before the Court to indicate that these deposits constitute anything other than gross sales resulting from Defendants’ transmission of unsolicited bulk e-mail to AOL Members; nor is there any evidence before the Court to indicate that Defendants incurred any expenses, deductions, or costs of goods sold with respect to these gross sales. Unnumbered Exhibit, Deposition Transcript of CN Productions’ Rule 30(b) (6) Designee, at 24 & 41 (refusing to answer any questions regarding the merits of this lawsuit, and refusing to identify CN Productions’ bank, on Fifth Amendment grounds); Unnumbered Exhibit, Deposition Transcript of Jay Nelson, at 20-21 (refusing to answer any questions regarding the merits of this lawsuit, on Fifth Amendment grounds); Unnumbered Exhibit, AOL’s Modified Request for Documents #7, 11 (requesting documents regarding profits, income and expenses related to e-mail advertising), Unnumbered Exhibit, Answer of Jay Nelson to AOL’s Modified Discovery Requests #7, 11 (refusing to answer on Fifth Amendment grounds); Unnumbered Exhibit, Answer of CN Productions to AOL’s Modified Discovery Request #7, 11 (indicating that no documents exist or objecting to the request)

27. From April 1998 through January 1999, AOL has incurred $117,847 in attorneys’ fees and $8,457 in costs in litigating this matter which it is now seeking to recover from Defendants. Supplemental Declaration of Abid R. Qureshi.

Albert V. Bryan, Jr.,
United States District Judge
Alexandria, Virginia
February 10th, 1999

CIVIL CASE NO.: 98-552-A

ORDER

It is hereby

ORDERED that the defendants, CN Productions, Inc. and Jay Nelson, their agents, assignees and those in privity with them, are enjoined from directly or indirectly engaging in any of the following activities:

(1) using any images, designs, logos or marks which copy, imitate or simulate any trade or service mark of America Online, Inc. (AOL) for any purpose, and/or using "aol" in any Internet domain name or any Internet Web site for any purpose, including but not limited to any advertisement, promotion, sale or use of any products or services;

(2) performing any action or using any images, designs, logos or marks that are likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, to deceive, or to otherwise mislead the trade or public into believing that AOL and Defendants, or any of them, are in any way connected, or that AOL sponsors Defendants; or that Defendants, or any of them, are in any manner affiliated or associated with or under the supervision or control of AOL, or that Defendants and AOL or AOL’s services are associated in any way;

(3) using any images, designs, logos or marks or engaging in any other conduct that creates a likelihood of injury to the business reputation of AOL or a likelihood of misappropriation and/or dilution of AOL’s distinctive marks and the goodwill associated therewith;

(4) sending or transmitting to any destination, or directing, aiding, or conspiring with others. to send or transmit to any destination, electronic mail or electronic communication bearing any false, fraudulent, anonymous, inactive, deceptive, or invalid return information, or containing the domain "aol.com," or otherwise using any other artifice, scheme or method of transmission that would prevent the automatic return of undeliverable electronic mail to its original and true point of origin or that would cause the e-mail return address to be that of anyone other than the actual sender;

(5) using, or directing, aiding, or conspiring with others to use AOL’s computers or computer networks in any manner, directly or indirectly, in connection with the transmission or transfer of any form of electronic information across the Internet;

(6) opening, creating, obtaining access to, and/or using in any way, or directing, aiding, or conspiring with others to open, create, obtain access to, and/or use in any way, any AOL membership or account;

(7) acquiring, compiling or transferring AOL member email addresses or e-mail addresses that contain "aol" in the domain; and,

(8) sending or transmitting, or directing, aiding, facilitating or conspiring with others to send or transmit, any electronic mail message, or any electronic communication of any kind, to or through AOL or its members.

Albert V. Bryan, Jr.,
United States District Judge
Alexandria, Virginia
February 10th, 1999