AOL sues instant message spammers

America Online Inc. said Thursday it had filed a federal lawsuit accusing numerous unnamed defendants of violating federal and state laws by sending bulk messages known as "spim" to instant message accounts and Internet chat rooms.

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The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., marked the first time AOL has expressly targeted spim in a legal action.

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AOL and its Anti-Spam Alliance partners -- EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. -- also said Thursday that they had filed another series of lawsuits targeting spam, the bulk e-mail messages that can clog e-mail inboxes and annoy some users. The lawsuits were filed in courts in Georgia, Virginia, Washington and California.

The lawsuits accuse defendants of violating laws including the federal CAN-SPAM Act. The law prohibits senders of spam from disguising their identity by using a false return address or misleading subject line, and it bars senders from collecting addresses from Web sites.