Background: AGIS cut them off, they're suing AGIS, they're also making noises about starting their own backbone. In a USA Today article (05 Nov) they got more specific about their plans. Sorry Randy, there's nothing in this you can cut or paste into your Cisco. But I think that peering with a Cyberpromotions-partnered ISP would be a huge operational problem based on reports of AGIS's experiences with them, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up that Cyberpromotions appears not to be ready to fold up their tent and stop spamming us all quite yet. Best quote from below: "AGIS engineers expressed skepticism that a deal like the one Wallace describes would be possible; even if one of the smaller backbone companies agreed to team up with him, backbones must negotiate to exchange traffic at "peering points" and many would refuse." "But Wallace's partner in the venture, Walt Rines, another e-mail marketer and president of Quantum Communications of Stratham, N.H., says three compaines are being considered, and all have peering agreements through 2006 or 2008. "That allows us time to make this thing happen so everybody's happy," he says. "We know things have to change." ------- Forwarded Message Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email Subject: USA Today Article..... Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 06:21:51 GMT OK, for those who couldn't or didn't want to get the November 5, 1997 USA Today article on Scamford...here are some excerpts. Section D, page 4D. Two articles by Leslie Miller, one doesn't give credit. A big picture of Scamford sitting on the floor of his office, he's holding a mail box with the letter EMAIL on the side. He is surrounded by computer equipment and cheap church dinner looking tables. "On-line lament: Deliver us from junk email" Talks about hijack servers, AOL lawsuits.... A real good tidbit here, something most predicted about the USA Today survey.. "Despite the annoyance, many users (55% in a Harris Survey in April) think spam is no big deal. "Just hit the delete button," said numerous respondents to a recent informal servey on USA TODAY's Web site." "Despised 'Spam King' sends no regrets" "He expects to sell more than 2 million in marketing-related products this year. And though temporarily sidelined, he says he's within days of announcing a deal that will give him "ownership and control" of one of the 20 or so providers whose networks make up the "backbone" of the Internet. The agreement will allow his company "to connect without fear of getting the lines turned off." "AGIS engineers expressed skepticism that a deal like the one Wallace describes would be possible; even if one of the smaller backbone companies agreed to team up with him, backbones must negotiate to exchange traffic at "peering points" and many would refuse." "But Wallace's partner in the venture, Walt Rines, another e-mail marketer and president of Quantum Communications of Stratham, N.H., says three compaines are being considered, and all have peering agreements through 2006 or 2008. "That allows us time to make this thing happen so everybody's happy," he says. "We know things have to change." [rest of article skipped] ------- End of Forwarded Message