Judge Orders End of Spam by Indian Firm

<br>NEW DELHI (AP) _ In a landmark judgment, a court on Tuesday ordered an Indian company to stop jamming an Internet service by sending junk e-mails, or spam, a news report said. <br><br>Judge R.C. Chopra

Tuesday, January 13th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW DELHI (AP) _ In a landmark judgment, a court on Tuesday ordered an Indian company to stop jamming an Internet service by sending junk e-mails, or spam, a news report said.

Judge R.C. Chopra ordered McCoy Infosystems Private Ltd. to stop transmission of unsolicited bulk electronic mail to any user of the state-owned Internet services provider, VSN Limited, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

The court in New Delhi was ruling on a lawsuit filed by a major Indian telecommunications firm, Tata Sons Ltd. and its subsidiary, Panatone Finwest Ltd., which own a large stake in VSNL.

Tata Sons alleged in the lawsuit that McCoy Infosystems was intentionally ``trespassing'' on VSNL's property by sending vast amounts of spam to its service users.

``This is the first court order in the country on spamming,'' PTI quoted Pravin Anand, Tata Sons' attorney, as saying after the verdict.

Since existing laws don't address recent technological advances such as spam, the company had turned to older laws referring to trespass of goods and nuisance laws to counter the menace of junk e-mails, Anand said.

Tata Sons' attorneys told the court that the McCoy Infosystems' ``continued action had severely degraded VSNL's capacity to function effectively,'' PTI said.

The junk e-mails had led to slower server speeds and longer response times, Anand said.

By sending unsolicited bulk e-mails, McCoy Infosystems was breaching the privacy of VSNL and their subscribers, Anand was quoted as saying.

Officials at McCoy were not immediately available.