Peter Hall, the independent filmmaker who had his Internet account canceled by mistake by EarthLink last month, says he will likely sue the ISP.
Hall, whose account was yanked because EarthLink wrongly thought he had sent out a massive amount of spam, says he lost potential business and ran up huge phone bills because he had no email. Also, he says, EarthLink is holding a large volume of his incoming email after having sent along a few dozen messages just after the company admitted its mistake. Further, EarthLink has never restored Hall's service as promised, and he maintains that he is owed several weeks worth of service. Hall gave no indication of when he might file suit.
For its part, EarthLink says it tried to restore Hall's service, and to give him six extra months at no charge, but he became abusive on the phone with company officials. "What he said was bordering on legally abusive, prosecutable things," says EarthLink spokesman Kurt Rahn.
Hall admits to calling an EarthLink representative "dickweed," but says he was provoked.
Rahn says Hall can still get his six free months if he wants them. "We're extremely sorry that this happened, and we're certainly amenable to hooking him back up," Rahn said.
Hall, who has a new account with another ISP, says it's too late. "They wanted me to beg," he says. "I'm not going to beg." He added that his lawyers have advised him not to accept any offers from EarthLink.
In the meantime, EarthLink - which had blamed the error on UUNET, its upstream provider - says it has changed its policies on canceling the accounts of suspected spammers. "Spammers are still toast," but "now we have a way to protect people who are innocent," Rahn says.
From now on, EarthLink phone reps will have discretion to temporarily restore accounts if they feel it's justified. Formerly, EarthLink's head of security, Harris Schwartz, made such decisions unilaterally. "We've taken some of that power out of Harris' hands," says Rahn. But, he added, Harris will still plaster the email addresses of suspected spammers in anti-spam newsgroups.
