But while high-profile cases get most of the attention, the battle between spammers and Internet service providers can more resemble a cat and mouse game. That's what happened to Neely. Someone came in, opened an account with cash and sent the messages, advertising a bulk mailing business. Because of the incident, AOL cut off Digital Bay's ability to send e-mail into its system. Neely says trying to get the situation resolved has been frustrating, but he did learn his lesson.
Spammers also use fake return addresses to try to cover their tracks.
Giarrusso gave a few technical tips for ISPs to consider, including delaying suspect mail, employing filtering methods and using a Web site that keeps a current list of addresses for known spammers. His company uses an identification system for incoming mail, and will refuse to accept mail from other providers until it is certain the other provider has anti-spam features working. One week, for example, Giarrusso said, MagicNet would not accept mail from 700 servers. That number was down to 500 the next week after MagicNet contacted the others about the problem. While that may inconvenience some customers briefly, Giarrusso says the effort is worth it and most understand what he is trying to accomplish.