A ballyhooed deal between Juno Online Services and TargitMail.com has blown up, resulting in a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
Juno, a New York-based Internet service provider, filed suit earlier this month against Global Technology Marketing International, LLC, TargitMail’s parent, asking for $3.3 million.
According to the complaint, Juno transmitted e-mail ads to its subscribers for TargitMail based on aggregated demographic data. However, TargitMail failed to make guaranteed payments amounting to $1.3 million, the complaint alleges.
In January, in violation of their agreement, Walt Rines, CEO of TargitMail, canceled the contract between the firms, the complaint continues. Without that cancellation, Juno would have been entitled to additional guaranteed payments totaling $2 million, the papers state.
Juno’s attorney had no comment. TargitMail executives and its attorney had not returned calls at deadline.
The case is on file with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Juno announced last October that TargitMail had become the exclusive reseller of e-mail advertising inventory on Juno’s free basic Internet access service. Juno added that it would not share personally identifiable information about subscribers.
According to the complaint, the deal called for TargetMail, of Portsmouth, NH, to pay 60% of the gross revenue it generated from the e-mail ads. The firm was also to pay 17 cents per month for each Juno subscriber who “checked his/her e-mail at least once within the preceding month,” the papers state.
Juno says it delivered “anonymized” demographic data on 2.5 million subscribers each month, requiring payment of the maximum amount allowed by the contract: $333,333.
Last fall, iiGroup Inc. signed a letter of intent to acquire TargitMail, pending iiGroup
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