Anti-Spam group Habeas Inc. is offering a new service to eradicate spam.
The service, Habeas Sender Warranted Email, uses trademarks and copyrighted wording embedded in the headers of outgoing email as unique identifiers.
The wording is a haiku poem protected by copyright laws and the trademark offers legal protection to other parts of the e-mail header.
Those who improperly use the trademark or copyrighted wording can be prosecuted under trademark and copyright law. Habeas can seek penalties of $1 million or more, shut down offenders through injunction or refer the cases for criminal prosecution, the Palo Alto, CA-based firm said in a statement.
The service is free to individuals and Internet service providers. Dun & Bradstreet has agreed to act as Habeas’ collection agency, the firm said.
“Existing law offers little protection from spammers, who also continue to find new ways to beat even the most sophisticated filtering technologies,” said Anne P. Mitchell, president and CEO of Habeas and former legal affairs director for anti-spam group Mail Abuse Prevention System. “Technology alone can’t stop spam. But existing copyright and trademark law used in conjunction with Habeas’ patent-pending system allows us to sue and shut down spammers while protecting legitimate senders of mail.”
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