Spam King Just A Criminal Joker

Spam King Indicted on Multiple Counts of Fraud, ID Theft

May 31, 2007, By Gina M. Scott

On May 30, 2007 Robert Alan Soloway, one of the most persistent professional spammers, was arrested after being indicted by a federal grand jury for Mail Fraud, Wire Fraud, Fraud in Connection with Electronic Mail, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Money Laundering.

"Spam is a scourge of the Internet, and Robert Soloway is one of its most prolific practitioners," said Jeffrey C. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. "Our investigators dubbed him the 'Spam King' because he is responsible for millions of spam e-mails."

According to the indictment, between November 2003, and May 2007, SOLOWAY operated Newport Internet Marketing Corporation (NIM) which offered a "broadcast e-mail" software product and "broadcast e-mail" services. These products and services constituted "spam" i.e. bulk high volume commercial e-mail messages that contained false and forged headers and that were relayed using a network of proxy computers (also know as "botnets"). Soloway and NIM made a number of false and fraudulent claims about the products and services on their Web site. Among them was a claim that the e-mail addresses used for the product and services were "opt-in" e-mail addresses.

Soloway has been a long term nuisance on the Internet according to the Spamhaus Project which tracks the Internet's spam related issues. Soloway has been sending enormous amounts of spam for years, filling mailboxes and mail servers with unsolicited and unwanted junk e-mail. Because he spammed through hijacked computers and open proxies, he has repeatedly violated both the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act of 1984 and the CAN-SPAM law of 2003.

Soloway's violations of the U.S. CAN-SPAM law and various state anti-spam laws resulted in his being sued successfully by a number of plaintiffs, including Microsoft Corporation and Robert Braver, owner of an Oklahoma-based ISP. Both Microsoft and Braver received damage awards of millions of dollars. Soloway never paid these awards, claiming that he lived off of the proceeds of a family trust and was therefore "judgment-proof." In September 2005 in Oklahoma City, after Soloway had fired his lawyers and then failed to appear to represent himself in court, U.S. District Judge Ralph G. Thompson issued a permanent injunction against Soloway, forbidding him to continue sending spam that violated the CAN-SPAM act. Soloway ignored this injunction as well and continued to spam.

Soloway constantly "moved" his Web site, which was hosted on at least 50 different domains. In at least one instance Soloway used another person's credit card to pay for the domain name used to host the NIM Web site. The spammed messages used to advertise the NIM Web sites contained false and fraudulent header information, and were relayed using botnets to disguise the true originating IP addresses of the spam.

Many of the false headers contained forged e-mail addresses or domain names that belonged to other real people, businesses, or organizations, causing these other innocent parties to mistakenly be blamed for spam transmitted by Soloway. Innocent parties whose e-mail addresses and domain names were forged by Soloway sometimes had their legitimate addresses "blacklisted" as spam sources, as a result.

Soloway refused to remove e-mail addresses from his distribution lists, leaving some victims with no choice but to close their e-mail accounts or cancel established domain names to stop the spamming. Soloway and NIM have been the subject of hundreds of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau and the Washington State Attorney General's Office.

As part of the indictment, the government is seeking $772,998 as proceeds of Soloway's unlawful activities.

Online Marketing with Automated Contextual Text Link Advertising

LinkXL™ Revolutionizes Online Marketing with Automated Contextual Text Link Advertising Technology

Automated interface allows publishers and marketers to organically grow their search engine ranking and reach untapped frontiers on the web.

(PRWEB) May 21, 2007 -- LinkXL™ launched a patent-pending technology today that enables web-based publishers and marketers to sell and purchase text link advertising within existing content using a fully automated system.

This innovative tool allows marketers to organically grow their website's link popularity and search engine ranking through contextual text link advertising. The LinkXL™ system, which can be accessed by registering at www.linkxl.com, allows marketers to purchase the text or words in the natural content on websites with related themes which then link web browsers back to the marketer's website.

"LinkXL is the next step in the evolution of text link advertising," said LinkXL™ CEO and co-founder John Lessnau. "Traditional text link brokers sell text links in footers and sidebars of websites that the search engines often ignore as paid links. LinkXL text links are indexed by search engines as natural links, allowing a website's link popularity to increase and consumers to be led to the site more readily through improved search engine rankings."

"Web marketing is no longer a luxury but a necessity," said LinkXL™ President Dwight Zahringer. "The LinkXL system will redefine online marketing in the most efficient way possible." This revolutionary method of increasing website popularity is also cost effective. It allows marketers to more accurately calculate advertising ROI and appears more authentic to consumers than traditional paid link advertising, which allows marketers to get more value for their advertising dollar.

About LinkXL
LinkXL™ is the first technology of its kind to allow all parties to buy and sell text link advertising within existing website content using a fully automated system, establishing a more mainstream, targeted, and cost-effective method of text link advertising. With the introduction of LinkXL™, advertisers can buy links to organically grow the link popularity of their website while publishers can make their keywords available to a much wider cross-section than ever before.
LinkXL™ offers a better way to use text link advertising:

1. Satisfies search engines algorithms by inserting HTML text links in the relevant TEXT of web pages rather than in irrelevant footers and side bars tables.

2. Offers webmasters a new way to significantly monetize their entire website with very little extra work.

3. Offers webmasters and SEOs a search engine friendly way to incorporate text link advertising into their website marketing plan.

For more information, visit www.linkxl.com.

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Press Contact: Dario Chiarini
Company Name: LinkXL
Phone: 6466242885
Website: http://www.linkxl.com

Most Downloaded Music Artists for April, 2007

MPFree.com Names Akon, Gwen Stefani, Avril Lavigne, Carrie Underwood, Hilary Duff and Toby Keith as the Most Downloaded Artists for April, 2007

MPFree.com, a division of Gulfstream Internet Group, announced today that Akon, Gwen Stefani, Avril Lavigne, Carrie Underwood, Hilary Duff and Toby Keith are the most popular downloaded artists for April, 2007.

Boca Raton, FL (PRWEB) May 16, 2007 -- MPFree.com members overwhelmingly chose Akon, Gwen Stefani, Avril Lavigne, Carrie Underwood, Hilary Duff and Toby Keith as the Most Downloaded Artists for April, 2007. The Most Downloaded Artists are the artists whose songs were downloaded by MPFree members most often during any given month.

Artists such as Gwen Stefani and Toby Keith have been recording music since before music downloads were available for purchase online. Carrie Underwood, who rose to fame after appearing on "American Idol," and the other artists named have found success in an era where music downloads are one of the most popular ways to purchase music.

www.MPFree.com provides free music downloads to its members when they take advantage of offers from their advertisers. Members also receive free music downloads when they refer their friends, family members or business associates. It is one of the only ways to get free music downloads without participating in illegal shareware Web sites.
"Consumers can pay to get legal downloads online, they can download songs illegally using peer-to-peer networks like Limewire for free, or they can get the best of both worlds -- free and legal music downloads -- from MPFree," said Philip Nadel, president of Gulfstream Internet Group.

Internet sites that employ shareware are not compliant with federal laws. Peer-to-peer web sites allow people to log on and share music without paying any copyright fees to the artists or record labels. It is a practice that has brought serious legal consequences to the people who participate in it. "Thanks to our advertisers," says Nadel, "the artists get paid their royalties, but our members pay nothing. We're the only site out there which offers a free service that is compliant with all laws."

MPFree offers its members a music catalog of more than 1 million tracks from all the major labels and artists. "These are original performance by the original artists. We don't believe in compromising when it comes to authenticity," says Nadel. "Music fans want their music to be top quality, and second-rate reproductions are not top quality."

About Gulfstream Internet Group:
Gulfstream Internet Group (GulfstreamInternet.com) is an online loyalty marketing company providing advertisers with unique internet direct marketing and advertising solutions while giving consumers a fun way to earn valuable rewards. Gulfstream reaches more than 10 million loyal members with its programs, which include 100Tunes (100Tunes.com), Cell Rewards (CellRewards.com), iPodSweepstakes (iPodSweepstakes.com), MPFree (www.MPFree.com), PhoneHog (www.PhoneHog.com) and SatelliteSweeps (SatelliteSweeps.com).

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Press Contact: Dave Goldstein
Company Name: Gullfstream
Phone: 561-852-7377
Website: www.MPFree.com

Business Book Gets the Conversation Going

New Business Book Gets the Conversation Going

Lois Kelly's "Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing" is released and has people talking.

Marblehead, MA (PRWEB) May 11, 2007 -- We all know that to become relevant, you need to engage your customers. But are you ready to have a real conversation and tell a good story? As Lois Kelly says, "Enough with the marketing blah blah blah -- let's talk about something interesting."

Beyond Buzz: the Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, is Kelly's actionable and engaging guide on how to transform traditional marketing and communications practices into two-way conversations.

The first book to focus on the message -- not just the mechanics -- of conversational marketing, Beyond Buzz provides practical advice, tools, and techniques for listening in new ways, creating fresh ideas to talk about, and re-designing marketing roles and functions.

Author Lois Kelly also shares real-world stories of companies who are succeeding with conversational marketing, like Sun Microsystems, Unilever's Dove Brand and Women and Infants Hospital, as well as some organizations and executives who have been less successful.

Beyond Buzz shows how to:

• Uncover amazingly interesting "talk-worthy" ideas that exist in every organization.
• Create a fresh point of view that lights up conversations and gets people to say, "That's interesting. Tell me more."
• Develop word of mouth messages based on the nine things that people like to talk about the most
• Overcome the most common obstacles to succeeding in a word of mouth world.
• Listen in new ways, making customers feel heard and gleaning valuable business insights.
• Tap into nine fundamental themes that always get people talking.
• Rethink how the marketing organization, showing how to evolve the eight marketing functions most important to conversational marketing.

The bottom line is that marketing today involves engaging in conversation, and with Beyond Buzz, the author has boldly defined the best methodology for igniting the conversations, and making long-lasting meaning, not just buzz.

The book's web site is here - http://foghound.com/BeyondBuzz/ .

About the Author:

Lois Kelly, co-founder of strategic communications firm Foghound, believes the root cause of most business and marketing problems is communications. She's dedicated her career to helping companies talk about their companies and issues in ways that get people to buy, believe and change, no matter how complex the topic or how competitive the market. Clients have included SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sapient, FedEx, The Business Innovation Factory, Communispace, eRoom, Copernicus, Orange, and SAS Institute.

Previously, Lois was fo-founder and president of Thunder House, a pioneering digital marketing agency, senior vice president of The Weber Group, a high-tech public relations agency, and an executive speechwriter and issus management and crisis communications specialist.

Lois' articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, Advertising Age, and Adweek, and she frequently speaks at conferences on marketing and communications throughout the world. She blogs at http://blog.foghound.com.

Lois is a board member of the Tony-award winning theater, Trinity Repertory Company, and is an advisor to Northeastern University's fast-growing Communications Studies program.,She's a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Harvard University.

Contact:
For review copies or interviews with Ms. Kelly:
Nettie Hartsock, Hartsock Communications
512-396-1067

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Press Contact: NETTIE HARTSOCK
Company Name: Hartsock Communications
Phone: 512-644-6471
Website: http://foghound.com/BeyondBuzz/