Kraft sued over alleged Gevalia spam

A small California Internet service provider has sued Kraft Foods Inc., alleging the firm is responsible for thousands of illegal spam messages.  Hypertouch.com founder Joe Wagner said his company has in the past 12 months received 8,500 copies of an e-mail pitching Kraft's high-end coffee subscription service, Gevalia.

Wagner, who filed the suit in federal court in San Francisco, claims he's entitled to $11.7 million in compensation under federal and state anti-spam laws.

"Like most folks with an e-mail address, we've been getting spam pushing Gevalia coffee for years," Wagner said. "We've finally had enough."

Kraft spokeswoman Pat Riso said the firm "does not comment on pending litigation."

Wagner's lawyer John Fallat said the e-mail pitches violate the federal CAN-SPAM act and California's state anti-spam law because the addressing information in the messages have been faked. The e-mails appear to come from a sender who is not a real person, rather from the marketing firm responsible for sending the e-mail, Fallat said. Such "fraudulent headers" are illegal under both federal and California spam laws.

Fallat said Wagner is entitled to $2.5 million from the CAN-SPAM claim -- $100 per spam e-mail, with triple damages applied for willful disregard of the law. Wagner's also entitled to another $8.5 million, or $1,000 per spam, under California law, he said.

In 2003, during a special report on spam, MSNBC.com reported receiving multiple Gevalia-related spam messages. At the time, the company said it didn't tolerate spam, but that occasionally third-party marketing firms erroneously sent out unsolicited e-mails to consumers.

Abbe Serphos said in a July 25, 2003, e-mail to MSNBC that Kraft had "strict policies in place that govern our e-mail communications to consumers." She said then that the firm had canceled contracts with marketers that sent out spam.

"We are very clear about our criteria for opt-in/opt-out controls and our partners have to agree to meet them. While we cannot share specific numbers, we have pulled offers from and stopped working with vendors and networks altogether that cannot meet those criteria," she wrote.

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