Washington Post, August 5, 1997, page C1
A group of Internet users who are angry over the mass posting of ads on the electronic bulletin boards of the global computer network have blocked or destroyed thousands of postings made by customers of UUNet Technologies Inc. of Fairfax.
Affecting ads and occasional noncommercial postings, the group has effectively declared war on any posting sent through the Internet service company, which it contends has failed to adequately crack down on people who post advertisements.
The action began over the weekend and, in its first 24 hours, organizers say, blocked more than 80,000 postings sent by UUNet customers. Only about 600 of the postings were not product pitches, they said.
It was the first such action aimed at a major Internet provider, according to computer industry specialists, and it prompted a sharp outcry from UUNet and some free-speech advocates. UUNet's chief executive, John Sidgmore, called the cancellations "digital terrorism."
Sidgmore said: "These people are not government agents or the police. They have absolutely no right to cancel service on someone else's infrastructure." In the interim, Sidgmore said he will pursue "every available legal recourse we have" to stop the action.
Dennis McClain-Furmanski, a Pulaski County, Va., resident who is a spokesman for the group that is trying to eliminate the postings, said: "We're trying to send a message to UUNet. They've been flatly ignoring our complaints. We don't want to punish them or cause them problems. We just want them to stop causing the Net problems."
It is unclear how many Internet users are being affected by the action or even if they are aware that their postings are being canceled. UUNet sells Internet service to other companies, which, in turn, sell the service to consumers with a non-UUNet brand name.
The protest highlights the unregulated and anarchistic nature of the Internet, where a few technically savvy people can have a big impact. Some network users are calling the action a "Usenet death penalty," referring to the section of the Internet that houses electronic bulletin boards where people can post messages for others to read.
Those bulletin boards, like many individual Internet users' mailboxes, increasingly have been filling up with junk postings offering, among other things, pornographic pictures and get-rich-quick schemes. The junk postings almost always are unrelated to the subject of the board, and the volume of those postings has begun to cripple an increasing number of boards, experts say.
A handful of Internet activists have been fighting the ads quietly by sending letters of complaint to the mailer's Internet service provider, asking that the offending account be canceled. Many service providers comply with such requests, because the growing amount of unsolicited commercial traffic is forcing them to buy larger and costlier computers.
Sidgmore said UUNet has tried to go after people originating the commercial postings, but its contracts with the companies that actually sell the service to consumers prevent UUNet from ordering that specific accounts be terminated. "They're not technically our customers so there's little we can do," he said.
In the last month, Sidgmore said, UUNet identified 592 junk message authors. The company has notified the firms that resell its service, but some of those users still have not been kicked off the system, he said.
Sidgmore said UUNet decided yesterday to implement technological changes to make it more difficult for users to send out mass Usenet postings and easier to identify offenders.
Protest organizers contend that they are operating within the law. They say they are simply using software programs to identify postings originating at UUNet, then sending notification of the postings to a special cancellation bulletin board. Technicians at individual Internet service providers monitor that bulletin board and typically cancel any postings they see identified there, though they have the option to let them stand.
The problem of unsolicited electronic mail and bulletin board postings has been receiving more attention from federal regulators. The Federal Trade Commission in June directed computer industry representatives, marketers and privacy advocates to come up with a voluntary system to curb the rising flood of such messages.
At present, more than 1 million junk Usenet postings a week are canceled by system administrators, said Deborah Howard, chairman of the Internet Service Providers Consortium, an industry organization. Howard said she sympathized with the action against UUNet. "It's a symptom of the extreme frustrations that have been building up for a long time," she said. "It's akin to fighting fire with fire. But now it seems the fire is burning out of control."
Two advocacy groups plan to unveil a Web site today that is intended to help people determine whether a specific junk e-mail message they've received may violate federal regulations. The site, at www.junkemail.org/scamspam, will include information on how to report the message to the FTC.
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company