A payment dispute between two online marketing companies has landed in federal court.
Bradford & Reed Inc., which does business as Mailbits.com, filed suit earlier this year accusing eTour, Inc. of failing to pay for almost 1 million online registrations generated in 2000.
In a counterclaim last month, Etour asserted that many of the names were “incomplete.”
A source familiar with the case said the firms are talking about a possible settlement.
At stake is roughly $1.6 million in fees claimed by Mailbits.
The case had its origins in December 1999, when eTour, which provides Internet browsing services for members based on their personal interests, assigned Mailbits to generate member registrations.
The agreement called for Mailbits, which offers free e-mail newsletters to consumers, to incorporate eTour’s sign-up checkbox on its subscription forms.
Mailbits claims in its complaint that it transmitted 673,742 membership requests to eTour between June and October 2000. However, eTour failed to pay for those names, or for an additional 220,000 registrations forwarded later in the year, the complaint continues.
An answer filed by eTour alleges that a “substantial number of the membership requests
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