Mortgage companies sued by ISP

A pleasant article crossed my desk today. ASIS Internet Services was hit with a large burst of mortgage spam in October of last year, tracked down the mortgage companies responsible, and took them to court.

The spamming lenders include Aegis Lending, American Home Equity, Quicken Loans, Stateside Mortgage, Northstart Financial and National Fidelity Funding.

Also named were Optin Global, Vision Media, Rick Yang and Peonie Chen. The spammers were fined by the FTC in April.

As for the responsible mortgage companies themselves, they of course pleaded ignorance, claiming they didn't know where the leads came from. (Although Quicken Loans admitted to dealing with Azoogle, a known major spamhaus.) The judge dismissed the claims against the mortgage companies, citing sloppiness in ASIS' filings. ASIS allowed to re-file, which they did on Friday.

Even if this suit against pink mortgage companies doesn't prevail — and I hope it does, I think we all owe a great vote of thanks to Nella White, the president of ASIS for bringing down a major spam gang.

Read more in c|net article Mortgage 'spammers' sued by ISP. Original legal brief available as a pdf file.