Virgin Net sues spammer

NEWS Virgin Net has served one of its own UK customers with a writ for sending bulk unsolicited emails - or spamming. It is the first time such action has been taken in the UK. The writ - served late last week - was for trespass and breach of contract. The man, Adrian Paris of Camberley, Surrey, had been warned off four times by the company before the legal action was taken. Paris trades under the company name ProPhoto UK. A spokeswoman for Virgin Net said: "He [Paris] has done this before - the first time was in July of last year - we warned him then. The last time he did this we got 1,200 complaints and were black-holed by other Internet service providers for a while." She claimed he was damaging the reputation of Virgin. Graham Smith, partner at law firm Bird & Bird, said: "We need a case and a precedent in this country and this will be the perfect opportunity to get one." Smith added that trespass had been used successfully against a junk fax organisation in the past and there were possible parallels in this case.