A court-ordered service reprieve for Sanford Wallace and his much-unloved Cyber Promotions ran out today amid hints that his backbone provider is getting ready to throw him off its servers once and for all.
Two weeks ago, Philadelphia US District Court judge Anita Brody found that Apex Global Internet Services Inc. had violated the cancellation clause of its contract with Wallace by suspending service on 19 September. She ordered AGIS, which had cited security concerns in shutting down Cyber Promotions and two other bulk emailers, to restore service through 16 October.
AGIS's next step is unclear. The security concerns revolved around ping attacks on its servers, apparently unleashed by angry recipients of Cyber Promotions spam. In the past two weeks, the attacks have apparently ceased, Wallace said.
However, AGIS president Phil Lawlor said today he was preparing a statement for release Friday on the company's course of action. Given recent history - and Cyber Promotions' track record of getting eighty-sixed by angry service providers - another cutoff could be in the offing.
Wallace said he had no idea what AGIS would do next. "You're guess is as good as mine," he said in an interview.
Either way, the indefatigable Wallace is ready.
"If they keep us on, we will continue to cooperate and keep them happy," he said. "If they decide to kick us off, we'll continue aggressively with our litigation and seek heavy monetary damages."
And there's no danger of an interruption in Wallace's spambardment.
He said backups are in place for Cyber Promotions and its 11,000 spamming customers if AGIS decides to pull the plug. And he said he is still working on securing a backbone - a costly acquisition that could make Cyber Promotions an even more unstoppable unsolicited email marketing force.
