Verizon briefs take on the spammers

MOBILE PHONE company Verizon Wireless has filed a federal lawsuit in New Jersey against a group of alleged cell phone spammers.

USA Today said that the company is highly miffed that the defendants have been inundating Verizon Wireless and its subscribers with millions of unsolicited commercial electronic messages.

Apparently on one day they sent 152,000 unsolicited commercial electronic messages to thousands of Verizon Wireless subscribers.

Verizon said in each case the spammers used fraudulent means to hide their identities and advertised adult content Web sites, software, herbal supplements, mortgage leads, and various business opportunities. The spammers damaged the network, caused annoyance and unwanted chargers to subscribers, Verizon said. Furthermore, the messages impact Verizon Wireless by clogging its computers system, co-opting the valuable resources needed to deliver legitimate messages, the court documents say.

Verizon's legal briefs are firing a lot of charges against the spammers, including some such as privacy invasion, which have not been used in phone spam cases before. The idea is that if you send a lot of charges against them then you can find several that will be enough to force them to stop operating, a spokesman said. µ