AOL v. Web Communications Press Release

On Monday March 2, 1998, AOL filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia charging Eddie Davidson and his two firms, Web Communications and Sex Web, Inc., with violations of the federal copyright statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Virginia Computer Crimes Act.

The suit alleges that Davidson and his two firms unlawfully transacted business under names like AOLsex.com.

In addition, the suit seeks damages and an injunction barring Davidson and the two companies from continuing the transmission of unsolicited e-mails to AOL members promoting sexually explicit Web sites.

More specifically, AOL charged that the defendants violated federal and Virginia state law by using the Company's trademark, copying the design of its AOL.com Web site and falsely including the Company's domain name in return addresses in order to make it appear that the site and solicitations were sponsored or approved by AOL.

The Company said Davidson and his two firms also knowingly sent unsolicited bulk e-mail to AOL using deceptive practices designed to circumvent AOL's mail controls and to hide the source from which they were being mailed.

George Vradenburg, senior vice president and General Counsel of America Online, Inc., said: "The conduct of these defendants has been nothing short of outrageous.

"They have been actively engaged in transmitting millions of unsolicited, unwanted e-mails advertising pornographic Web sites without regard to the age of their recipients.

"As if that were not bad enough, they have deliberately exploited AOL's name in a manner calculated to suggest that AOL somehow endorsed their pornographic Web sites, when nothing could be further from the truth."