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MailBlocks sues to enforce anti-spam patent
Posted by James Grimmelmann on Friday, May 09 @ 10:38:20 EDT
Contributed by lithorn
Patent
lithorn writes "A start-up named MailBlocks owns two patents which claim processes that to protect an email account from receiving spam by using a whitelist. Mail from addresses not on the whitelist receive a challenge email in reply; the sender must then reply to the challenge to prove that there is a human on the other end.

EarthLink, this country's third-largest ISP, announced a similar new service this week, except that the sender must type information into a web page.

MailBlocks lost no time in suing EarthLink. It has already sued three other companies, but this suit has a higher profile due to the size of EarthLink's customer base.

The New York Times has the story here."

 
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Re: MailBlocks sues to enforce anti-spam patent (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, May 10 @ 00:26:17 EDT
Gee, I hope they don't start sending out cease and desist letters to night club owners.



Thank you, I am here all the week.



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Prior Art (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Sunday, May 18 @ 14:41:52 EDT
At CMU they have used a similar scheme for years.


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