CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc.

CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc.
CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc.
Court	United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
Full case name	CompuServe Incorporated v. Cyber Promotions, Inc. and Sanford Wallace
Decided	February 3, 1997
Holding
	Trespass to chattels occurs when the defendant intrudes upon the plaintiff's property such that damage results.
Court membership
Judge sitting	James L. Graham

CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc. was a ruling by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in 1997 that set an early precedent for granting online service providers the right to prevent commercial enterprises from sending unsolicited email advertising – also known as spam – to its subscribers. It was one of the first cases to apply United States tort law (Restatement (Second) of Torts §217 and §218) to restrict spamming on computer networks.^[1] The court held that Cyber Promotions' intentional use of CompuServe's proprietary servers to send unsolicited email was an actionable trespass to chattels and granted a preliminary injunction preventing the spammer from sending unsolicited advertisements to any email address maintained by CompuServe.^[2]

^ Cite error: The named reference trespass_trouble was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference compuserve_cyber_opinion was invoked but never defined (see the help page).