Dear Net Citizen, The recent Internet posting launching a fund raising drive in order to help Brock Meeks, defray the legal expenses of a lawsuit brought against his newswire, CyberWire Dispatch, has drawn several inquiries for a summary of the issues involved in this case. Although the case was featured in the April 22 (Fri.) issue of the Wall St. Journal (page B1), we recognize that members of the Internet don't always have the time or resources to look up back issues a newspaper. Out of deference to those asking for more information, the following summary of the case is provided. Sometime during February of this year, an electronic solicitation began appearing on the Internet from a company identified only as the "Electronic Postal Service" (EPS). EPS promised to it would pay money to people simply for agreeing to receive "commercial e-mail" through their system. EPS said it wold pay an average of 6.5 cents per commercial e-mail message received. EPS further promised: "There is absolutely no charge, periodic charge, hourly charge or phone charge to receive or review EPS commercial e-mail." "You are provided with a free EPS mailbox and you may access this EPS mailbox through a toll free phone number so there are no phone line charges." In addition, EPS offered "full Internet access including network Internet e-mail remote log-in, file transfer capability and much more." To sign up you were required to call an 800 number or send for information to the EPS Internet account (eps@world.std.com). You had to include your name and address. Brock called and asked for the EPS information. It never came. Instead, he received an unwanted and unsolicited direct mailing from a company called Suarez Corporation Industries. That mailing claimed that for a price of $159, Suarez would send you a book and software that could help you create a "net profit generation system" capable of earning anywhere from $30,000 to $1 million per year. Brock began investigating why he received the Suarez mailing and soon found out that Suarez had obtained his name from the request for EPS information. More investigation found that the EPS account was registered to Suarez Corporation Industries. Brock then looked into the background of this company. During his investigation into the Suarez business, Brock discovered that several state and federal enforcement agencies had brought actions against Suarez as a result of questionable direct mailing practices. Brock's Dispatch article questioned the claims made in the original Internet solicitation of EPS and then reported his findings on enforcement agency actions against the Suarez company. Brock's article clearly reflected his attitude of disapproval for having asked for one piece of information and being sent something he neither wanted or asked for. Suarez objected to the article and has filed a defamation lawsuit claiming Brock made defamatory remarks and sought to disparage his products "and otherwise tortiously (sic) interfere with the plaintiff's ability to develop" EPS. Suarez claims the Dispatch article lost him business and he is seeking punitive damages and demanding an injunction to block Brock from writing anything further about him or his company. All the charges in the suit are completely without merit, Brock says. The April 22 (page B1) issue of the Wall St. Journal, writing about case says: "Suarez's in-house counsel, Steven L. Baden concedes that the Electronic Postal Service isn't yet 'commercially viable' and doesn't yet provide Internet access, despite the ad's claim to the contrary." The lawsuit "is one of the first U.S. libel cases to arise out of the free-for-all on the Internet," the WSJ article says. "If it succeeds, some legal experts say it could spawn other complaints," the WSJ says. You are encouraged to repost this message. But please, we urge you to keep proper Net protocol in mind when reposting or cross posting this message. Thanks for your time. On behalf of Brock and for future generations of electronic journalists, we appreciate your contributions and support. Sincerely, Samuel A. Simon President, Issue Dynmics, Inc.* ssimon@idi.net Mitch Kapor Chair, Electronic Frontier Foundation* Kapor@eff.org David Farber The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications Systems University of Pennsylvania* farber@central.cis.upenn.edu Philip Elmer-DeWitt Senior Writer TIME Magazine* ped@panix.com Marc Rotenberg Electronic Infomation Privacy Center* epic@cpsr.org Nicholas Johnson Former FCC Commissoner* 103-5393@mcimail.com Jerry Berman Electronic Frontier Foundation* jbeman@eff.org Mike Godwin Electronic Frontier Foundation* mnemonic@eff.org *AFFILIATION IS FOR INDENTIFICATION PURPOSE ONLY For Tax Deductible Donations: Make Checks out to "Point Foundation" and clearly annotate on the check: "For Legal Defense Fund." Send those checks to: Meeks Defense Fund c/o Point Foundation 27 Gate Five Road Sausalito, CA 94965 For those who don't care about the tax deductible status, send contributions to: Meeks Defense Fund c/o IDI 901 15th St. NW Suite 230 Washington, DC 20005